Inside-out brain

An Entire Stadium Disappears

2011-02-22T05:21:00.000-08:00

Let me start by saying: I'm not especially interested in cricket, and will probably heave a sigh of relief once the World Cup and the IPL are done with. What interest I do have is because of my wife, who follows it like a true fan. We even went to Chinnaswamy Stadium for a couple of the practice matches there before the World Cup started proper.

And so we were happy when we found that an important match, India Vs. England, was being shifted from Kolkata to Bengaluru. Immediately the missus wanted to be try and get tickets. Knowing that over 50% of the city would want to attend (and the other half would be dragged there by their spouses), I looked around the net for the sales venues so we could be there on the first day. This was about two weeks ago, and the websites, and the news outlets, and signs at the stadium itself, all said that the tickets would be on sale starting from the 21st of February. Just 6 days before the match itself? Weird, but... OK, we'll go then.

A week after that, around Valentine's Day, there's this strategically inserted news item that talks of how the folks who bought tickets in Kolkata for the match originally are getting their corresponding tickets for Bengaluru. Wait, what? Are they all going to fly down all the way to see the match? At the most, this would be 5 to 10% of the total ticket holders.

A couple of days after that, on steady enquiries everywhere, it seemed like Planet M, Reebok (Official Partners Of The World Cup apparently) will sell the tickets offline, while Kyazoonga will sell the tickets online.

On the 20th, when we called up Planet M to confirm whether they're selling tickets, they backed out - they weren't going to be selling them any more. Oh well. On the night of the 20th, I stayed awake, hoping that "21st" would be taken literally and I would be able to buy the tickets online after midnight. No such luck - in fact the site got overwhelmed by the masses of people like me who had also hoped the same, and it got knocked offline for most of the day after.

Today (the 22nd), two things happened. There was a news story about Kyazoonga, which apologized for going under, and also mentioned that it had only 4,500 tickets for the finals anyway. There was no mention of how many tickets it had for the Bengaluru match - it would have to be less than the Finals, of course, so we can set 4,500 as the upper limit.

The other thing that happened was that we got a call from Reebok (Official Partners Of The World Cup), telling us that since we're earlier registered as being interested in the tickets, it was their duty to inform us that Reebok would not be selling the tickets for the match. The only offline place to get the tickets now was the stadium itself, and that too would probably begin only from the 24th, or thereabouts. As it was, "there were very few tickets left", and that was why Reebok outlets were not getting tickets to sell.

Recap: Online tickets are a very small number. Almost every outlet that was due to sell the offline tickets won't be doing so. And since there's an unknown but apparently significant number of people flying down from Kolkata, no one knows exactly how many tickets were supposed to be there. But "There are very few tickets left".

WHERE is this stadiums-worth of tickets going, then? The only other news story about this match was about MPs and corporators armtwisting the stadium officials into giving them large numbers of tickets. Could that be it? When we'd gone to the stadium for the practice matches, we were lucky to get tickets - apparently they'd all been bought by black marketers who were selling the same tickets for double the prices. Could it be the same back-office arrangements being made on the sly for the upcoming match?

Whatever - the missus threw up her hands in disgust and decided that it was not worth it. It was never going to be a fair fight/queue/arrangement, and any and everyone who could use his jugaad to get the tickets would be doing it anyway. So now we're watching the match on TV. Hope the cable guy doesn't decide to charge us extra for it.

The whole thing just makes me feel helpless. Whether it's buying a ticket, a house, land, food, phone - the moment any government body touches it, it's like the kiss of death for fairness. All I'm doing is sitting here angrily typing into a computer, I know, but no one else cares, in any case. They're too busy finding contacts to get their work done.

Introducing Tender Leaves

2011-02-02T22:21:00.000-08:00

[Here's what I've been up to for the last few months. Pliss to pass on to your Pune based friends.]

Tender Leaves

It’s more than just a library

Introducing Tender Leaves – a unique book rental service that delivers books to your offices. What’s more - you can read at your own pace. There are no due dates, no late fees.

Books for You. Delivered to You.

Hand-picked recommendations and must-read lists to help you choose from thousands of books in English and Telugu across 43 categories. Based on your wishlist, books will be delivered at your office, Monday to Friday. When you are done reading, you can return the books by dropping them in the drop-box at your office. As soon as your books are received, your next shipment of books gets automatically scheduled.

With a combined experience of over 20 years, the founders B V Harish Kumar and Sudarshan Purohit have worked in IT companies like Persistent Systems, Infosys, BMC Software and Intuit. Sudarshan has also translated Hindi pulp fiction novels into English. Their passion for books brought them together.

Libraries were never so convenient and cool

Free Delivery of books all over Pune
No Due Dates. No Late Fees
Thousands of books in English and Telugu (Hindi, Marathi and Bengali coming soon)
Reviews and Ratings to help you choose books
Win badges and goodies for reading
Choose a subscription plan that suits you best
Plans starting at Rs. 200/- per month. Attractive discounts on half-yearly and annual plans.
Secure online payment using CCAvenue – India’s leading payment gateway. Or pay by cheque.

So, what are you waiting for? Sign up Now!

P.S. Do remember to use the promo code FIRST100 to avail a discount of Rs. 400/- on all half-yearly and annual plans.

Skimming the Surface

2010-07-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

[This review of Dreaming in Hindi, by Katherine Russell Rich, was published with some edits in the Deccan Herald]

Sometime in 2001, Katherine Russell Rich decided to learn a new language. In fact, she decided to leave New York, go to the country where it was spoken and do a year-long course there to learn it. The language was Hindi, and the country was India. This book is partly a chronicle of that one year in India, and partly an exploration of what it feels like to learn a new language.

The book runs on four tracks simultaneously: Her experiences in India; discussions on the Hindi language itself; her views on Indian culture, religion, and so on; and finally, the neurology of learning a language, as understood from several researchers in the domain.

Of these four tracks, the last one is the most successful. Rich’s core theory is that learning a new language changes the way the brain itself works, and probably shapes the way experiences are stored in the brain. She interviews several experts (all of them American) about the latest findings, and explains their theories. At one point she uses the various flavours of sign language – American, Indian, formally structured and informally developed – to explain how the cadence of a language influences communication itself. These are the most interesting parts of the book; these topics have not been covered enough in popular writing, and Rich has created a good overview of the field here. Moreover, the discussion often goes way beyond Hindi itself, into what learning any new language is like, so there is plenty of interest here for Hindi-speaking readers too.

Unfortunately, the other three topics covered by the book fall flat. These sections are written with a very specific reader in mind: a monolingual person who thinks of India as an exotic land of turbaned, old-world maharajas. Neither of these criteria matches the typical English-speaking Indian reader, who speaks at least two languages and thinks of maharajas as belonging to mythological serials on TV.
Rich’s year in India was spent almost entirely in Udaipur, which is described in loving detail, exoticized the way the tourists like it: She lives in havelis, walks past cows on the street, meets traditional housewives who never completed school. And yes, meets the requisite Maharanas. Udaipur, however, is not equivalent to India, and Mewari-accented Hindi is definitely not the only language spoken in the country. So sentences like these jar: "In India, time is circular, a perception that’s shaped by the concept of reincarnation… yesterday and tomorrow are the same word: kal. 'The day before yesterday' and 'the day after tomorrow' are both parson... All the days in the spin are the same: aaj. In the west, in contrast, in English, time is linear..." What about the hundreds of other Indian languages with different words for "yesterday" and "tomorrow"?

At times, Rich attempts the near-impossible task of explaining India to the western reader from her Udaipur vantage point. When she opens up a newspaper, the paper invariably mentions some significant event, such as Godhra, or the Babri Masjid destruction and the resulting riots. A colleague’s idle comment is linked to the massacres on trains during partition. All these incidents are pithily explained away, blame squarely placed, history turned into bite-sized chunks, definitely not intended to give the complete, complex picture.

Then there’s the required quota of exotic-India words, stuffed in at the first possible opportunity: tigers and saffron and saris. In the first chapter of this book, Rich sees a hotel swimming pool, and describes it thus: "The pool was mango-shaped."

The overall form of the book causes a few problems as well. Because she’s using her experiences during her course as the springboard for the scientific theories, Rich needs to shoehorn in some incidents that roughly match the topics of the theories she plans to talk about. So random comments by acquaintances lead Rich to talk about the latest views on Chomsky’s papers, and an invitation to a deaf school leads to a discussion on the "spreading activation network theory". This sometimes works, and sometimes doesn’t. Also, since we know she did a specific course in India and then came back, there’s no ending or climax to build up. Rich ends her chapters with cliffhangers like "…and now I would be the next one to go down", which don’t really turn the book into a page-turner.

Rich winds up talking of too many things at once, and perhaps because of this, never really goes deep into any of them. The neuroscience sections are probably the only ones that feel authentic, and it would have been a good idea to have an Indian look through the culture sections for glaring errors (The definition of saala given actually means jija in Hindi – the problem probably happened because both words mean brother-in-law in English). But, as mentioned above, the book isn’t written for Indians at all. It is definitely not a guidebook to India, nor does it help in any way in learning Hindi. No, the book is about an American woman’s jaunt to an exotic country, and her subsequent interviews with researchers back home.

Some rudimentary water-related calculations

2010-06-01T04:02:00.000-07:00

I posted this status on Facebook the other day: "If you take the number of centimeters of rain that fall on Bangalore or Pune every year, multiply by the land area, and divide by the population, you get so much water per person that we should all have enough and more of it every day.
(This is what I've been doing today afternoon, aided by the numbers from Wikipedia)"

A couple of folks wanted me to post the calculations, so here's a post explaining it.

According to this site, one cubic metre of water is equivalent to 1000 litres. So, if your city has an area of one square meter (small city, I know), and it has one meter of rainfall in a year, the city is getting a thousand litres of water. I.e., one centimetre of rainfall over one square metre is 10 litres of water.

Wikipedia lists Bangalore as having an area of 710 sq. km. approximately. 1 sq. km. is about 10^6 square metres. Therefore, if one centimetre of rains falls on Bangalore, we have 10 litres * 710 * 10^6 of water. That's 710,00,00,000 or 710 crore litres of water.

The official government site on Karnataka lists Bangalore as having about 900 mm of annual rainfall, or about 90 cm. That means that about 63,900 crore litres of water falls to the ground within Bangalore city limits every year.

Again, Wikipedia lists Bangalore's population at 65 lakhs. 63,900 crore (i.e. 63,90,000 lakhs) divided by 65 lakhs is 98,307 litres of water per person per year. In other words, about 270 litres per day.

This set of statistics show that only about 9 developed countries show a water use of more than 270 litres per day. India is way down the list, at 150 litres or so.

What it all boils down to (pardon the pun), is that if Bangalore can hold on to all the water that falls in its own territory every year, every citizen will have all the water he or she needs for every purpose. I haven't even considered all the water from the Kaveri river schemes and so on, and the much lower population density of non-urban areas in Karnataka.

Just hold on to the rain - using lakes, by letting the earth absorb the water, by helping the water table rise, and you will solve your water problem for a very, very long time.

[This is a rather naive calculation, I know, but the overall logic sounds pretty fair to me. Try it for your own city]

A fun thriller inspired by headlines

2010-05-28T04:37:00.000-07:00

[This is the unedited version of a review published in the Deccan Herald]

Fun Thriller

[ Review of Blowback, by Mukul Deva]

Early on in Blowback, a mysterious tribal leader assembles all of the tribes fighting for jihad and outlines a radical plan to them. They listen, awestruck by the brutality and originality of the plan, and elect him as their leader. A few months later, the plan is put into action. You the reader wait to see what dastardly ideas the terrorists have. And it turns out that they’re... putting bombs in crowded places in Indian cities. Yes, it is brutal and effective, but your average Indian reader is bound to find this revelation a bit anti-climactic. We know this is happening today, and, due to the hard work of our investigative agencies, we also know some part of the planning. Reading about almost exactly the same thing in a thriller makes it seem like some sort of investigative journalism. Where are the devastating nuclear bombs, the almost-unbelievable terror plots, the top-secret biological weapons?

Once this bit of disappointment is digested, though, the book grows on you. After all, some of the terror attacks of recent times would have been unbelievable a few years back. Some of Frederick Forsyth’s writing doesn’t seem quite so comfortably imaginary any more. Deva’s writing could be looked at as something closer to real life, immediate, something really plausible and right-out-of-the-headlines. The writing style adds its impact – Deva’s big strength is the smoothness of his prose, crisp and fast-moving, and you never get distracted from the story by the writing. It all feels like a good piece of reportage rather than an action thriller.

In addition, the main protagonists are generally well drawn and plausible, if slightly larger-than-life. The different people in Force 22, the elite unit around which the events of this book (and Deva’s previous two books, Lashkar and Salim Must Die) revolve, feel well etched out, with their individual weaknesses, passions, and history, and some of them evolve through the book.

If the character development fails anywhere, it is in the bad guys. Without an exception, all are totally evil and monomaniacal – no trace of doubt and no understandable motivation for their viewpoints. You could substitute the low-level terrorist recruits with the tribal leader mentioned above with no difference to how the story would proceed. The best action thrillers take the time to show how the villains got where they are, and what the world looks like from their viewpoint – this book doesn’t.

Unfortunately, there are a few segments where the storytelling isn’t up to par. The ending takes on a Bollywoodish touch, with true love, maa-ki-mamta (mother’s love) and tragedy taking over the proceedings instead of the expected riveting action sequence, leaving a bit of an off-taste for the reader. Another weak segment is a several-page-long discussion between senior Indian officials and the Prime Minister about the growth of terrorism. Deva uses this scene to list all of his ideas to solve the problem, one after the other, ending the sequence with the comment that things will now improve since the Prime Minister’s heard these ideas. Any smart editor would have cut this sequence, since it is nothing more than a tirade by the author.

Overall, the book succeeds at being a fast-paced, entertaining, genre thriller, in the vein of works by dozens of other western writers. Just like those other books, though, it also disappears from your head after you’re finished, leaving no real impact on you.

The Adventure of the Name-dropper

2010-04-12T04:51:00.000-07:00

[The following review of Holmes of the Raj appeared, with some edits, in the Deccan Herald]

Holmes of the Raj, by Vithal Rajan

You have to say this about Vithal Rajan – he gets the language down pat. For anyone who’s been a fan of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories of Sherlock Holmes, and can’t get enough of Doyle’s crisp narration, reading Holmes of the Raj will be nostalgic. The book consists of 6 stories of Sherlock Holmes, chronicling an extended visit to British-era India, narrated by the sturdy Dr. Watson, using very similar language to the original.

The language, however, is where the similarities end. It’s fun to read about Holmes travelling to all the popular spots in Raj-era India – Madras, Nainital, Calcutta – but, well, he doesn’t seem to be doing all that much. The core of the Holmes stories are always murders that are just not possible, incredible-sounding mysteries, and in general, puzzles that make us go “Ah!” once we understand the answers. Holmes doesn’t get into any such thing here. At most he’s traipsing through Central India looking for a tribal deity, figuring out a smuggling ring, or stumbling across Jack the Ripper while looking for something else. Where are the speckled bands, the dancing men, the curious incidents of dogs in the night-time? The stories here would have fit on Allan Quatermain or The Saint or maybe even Fleming’s James Bond – any heroic British character, in fact.

More than the locations, Rajan relies on references to real-life and fictional characters from the era to set in the book in the Raj. Unfortunately, there’s rather too many of these. There are no less than 64 entries in the appendix of Holmes of the Raj, most of them about the real-life people referenced in it. This doesn’t include the dozen or so fictional characters referenced. Considering that the book is 260 pages long, that comes to about one reference every three pages. And these references go all over: Dhyan Chand, Motilal Nehru, Ronald Ross, Kim, Clark Gable, Madam Blavatsky, even Balraj and Parikshit Sahni. It’s as if Rajan was attempting to stuff in as many names as he could think of. And there’s no subtlety about it, each character is named and described and given his dialogues, so you never have to make any effort to spot them, which is no fun.

In addition, Holmes and Watson sometimes seem like the aliens from 2001: A Space Odyssey, teaching the natives all sorts of things that they couldn’t have thought of themselves – how malaria is actually spread, how to bowl the doosra, how Rabindranath Tagore should begin his famous poem. More focus on the mysteries themselves, and less on all these clever hints about India, would have made it worthwhile.

To his credit, Rajan has done a lot of reading on the topic. His descriptions of the railway systems, of the British dwellings of the day, and so on are meticulous and detailed, and the stories use these things as integral elements. The characters making cameo appearances often expound upon their points of view about British Rule and India, and assuming these are historically correct, the book serves as an interesting reference about who said what. And, as mentioned before, the language is very close to Doyle’s language.

But it takes a special kind of writer to create convoluted murder mysteries – to imagine strange circumstances, to think up clues and red herrings, to model the murderer’s and the detective’s mind, and Rajan simply does not belong to that class.

Read this book as an interesting journey through the Raj as narrated by a familiar voice, but not as a series of detective stories.

A Shelf-full of Books

2010-04-07T00:57:00.000-07:00

[The following piece appeared, with some edits and a title change, in DNA on the 21st of March]

A few days after my first translation, The 65 Lakh Heist, by Surender Mohan Pathak, was released, I walked into a large chain bookstore to see if it was stocked there. I found it in the “Indian Fiction” bookshelf. Its two closest neighbours were an anthology of Love stories edited by Ruskin Bond, and the newest book by Salman Rushdie.

I’ve been browsing through bookstores all my life, but it wasn’t until then that it struck me just how unfair the categorization was for all of the books displayed in the Indian Fiction category. The Ruskin Bond book should have been under Romance, or maybe under Anthologies. Rushdie’s book should have been Literary Fiction. Many of the other books felt wrong, too – Tagore’s and Premchand’s translations should have been under Classics. There should’ve been some sort of category created for Indian campus-lit and chick-lit by now, but those books sit next to historical thrillers and post-modern fiction in the same Indian Fiction bookshelf.

The reader will, no doubt, point out that the volume of Indian books in all these genres is so low, that the books would be lost if mixed in with the other – non-Indian – books. And starting from that point, the reader – and several writers and reporters – have come to the conclusion that Indian writing is very limited and that readers here read much less than their counterparts in other countries. Although this makes for great copy, it’s far from the truth.

Let’s go back to that book I talked about in the beginning – The 65 Lakh Heist, by Surender Mohan Pathak. Mr. Pathak writes crime thrillers in Hindi, and has so far written 270 of them, selling over 25 million copies of his books. The 65 Lakh Heist alone has sold over 3 lakh copies in Hindi. Hindi Pocket Books, as they are called, are a huge industry – but no less than Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, or Bengali popular fiction. This is hardly surprising. The number of people speaking these languages in India is more than those for whom English is a first language. And this industry publishes books in all genres – romance, action, thrillers, noir, social dramas, literary and historical fiction. And if you look at Indian publishing as a whole, instead of just the English segment, it’s thriving and can give English-language publishing in, say, the US, a run for its money.

But if this industry is so large, why are the books in the Indian languages not stocked in the “prestigious” chain bookstores in India? In Bangalore, chain stores have an emaciated-looking Kannada shelf which features Kannada translations of “Chicken Soup for the Soul”; in Pune, there’s a Marathi shelf which contains (you guessed it) Marathi translations of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” and “The Alchemist”. The Hindi shelf, if present, has the same content. Why do the stores boast variety in the English section but turn the Indian language shelves into pale echoes of the English shelf?

I spoke to Krishnakumar R., of Odyssey, about why there weren't more regional language books in Odyssey stores, and he listed three reasons. "The publication schedules of regional publishers are not well planned and have less volume than the English publishers. Second, the distributors of these books don't do a good job of pushing these books to our stores, so we don't get the books reliably. And thirdly, economics is a factor too - our profit margin on regional language books is definitely less than the English books."

All of which are potential discouraging factors, true. But then these stores already deal with a wide variety of products: music, movies, weekly magazines, stuffed toys, show pieces, and so on. Many of these will have the same problems that Mr. Krishnakumar listed. Most tellingly, though, he states, “And we also need to stock those products that cater to our target class of people.”
Perhaps that’s the crux of the issue – the perception that popular fiction in regional languages is a different class of people from those that read English. The feeling is that there are different stores for those books anyway, and the people who come here prefer only the English books.

The movie shelves of these same stores prove them wrong. In the past few years, the size of the Marathi, Kannada, Bengali, and whatnot shelves has grown dramatically – everything other than Hindi and English used to be on one shelf, and now they occupy a fourth of the movies section. And there’s always a crowd sorting through them. Everything that could be said about regional language books could be said about the movies, too. Yet, the stores cater – profitably – to every type of Indian movie watcher. If they actually stocked a representative collection of popular fiction in Indian languages, the stores would similarly attract the general Indian reader, instead of focusing on the niche.

We the English readers, though, us fans of Chetan Bhagat and Dan Brown, would find ourselves in trouble if this happens - we wouldn’t know what to buy. Not because we’re ashamed to, but because we simply don’t know which books are good, and which are tripe. We know when the newest John Grisham is coming out, but we don’t even know which writers are good in Hindi. How is it that we, readers of this paper, never hear of the new releases in Hindi/Marathi/Tamil ? Why are there no best seller lists or reviews we can refer to?

Well, yes, the Hindi/Marathi/Tamil newspapers do talk of these books, and they do have a good circulation. So it could be argued that English newspapers don’t “need” to cover them. But the reason to cover regional literature is the same reason that Bollywood and other Indian cinema is covered in the English media – it is interesting to a large part of the population, it is a large industry that involves thousands of people and large amounts of money, and it is as much a part of the popular culture as movies are. It’s strange that cinema is covered and fiction isn’t.

We might be in this situation because we’ve imported the whole business of English books – writing, buying, marketing, even the genre names on the bookshelves, from the Western books ecosystem. This includes the reviewing and the top ten lists and the contacts with the press – everything that constitutes the hype that sells the books. Publishers in other languages are still waking up to the fact that the English publishing industry is dominating the literary supplements with its flashy covers and advertisements. Writers in other languages are much more grounded – they aren’t turned into celebrities the way English writers are, and they have traditionally depended on word of mouth for their publicity.

Some Indian language book publishers are now learning from their multinational counterparts – they have websites, push for reviews, and even make extracts of new releases available for new readers. A couple of English newspapers now carry columns by writers in other languages. The translation market is booming – until now, it was lop sided, with books from all over available in other Indian languages, but next to nothing available from Indian languages in English. This has changed over the past couple of years, with more and more interesting titles coming out, and more publishers jumping into the fray. Almost every genre of books is now getting translated, raising interest in the originals in their respective languages.

Maybe in a few years, we’ll be as informed about the latest releases in Kannada or Hindi or Marathi as the English ones. And we can go to the chain book stores, and buy our own writers from the genre shelf that they belong to – not the ‘Indian Fiction’ bookshelf.

-------------

What to start reading
If you’re interested in reading some popular fiction from around India, but aren’t familiar with the languages required, here’s a list of new and interesting translations into English.

1. The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction: This was probably the book that started the current wave of interest in popular fiction. Excellently produced, smoothly translated, this book is a must-have.
2. Chandrakanta, by Devkinandan Khatri: The original isn't contemporary, in fact, it's nearly a century old now. But a recent translation, by Puffin books, was quite well done, and probably is one of the few of Indian fantasy so far.
3. The Adventures of Amir Hamza, and Tilism-e-Hoshruba: These are very interesting popular epics, in Urdu and Persian, which have been embellished through the centuries by storytellers. Excellent translations by Musharraf Ali Farooqui came out last year, which revealed these stories for the first time to English readers.
4. The Feast, and other visions of malevolence: This is an interesting graphic novel adaption of weird tales("goodh katha") by the renowned Marathi writer, Ratnakar Matkari. It is scheduled to be released this year, and it will be the first translation of this genre into English.
5. House of Fear, by Ibn-e-Safi: Random House recently released this translation of the cult Urdu pulp writer Ibn-e-Safi, detective stories. There is another anthology of his work, Doctor Dread, coming out soon from Blaft publications.
6. Faster Fene: B.R. Bhagwat created this young lad who gets embroiled in adventures and mysteries with alarming frequency. He's been a favourite of Marathi readers for decades now. Some of his stories have been translated into English, too, but are available only in stores in Mumbai/Pune.
7. Byomkesh Bakshi: Made famous by the TV serial starring Rajit Kapoor, Bengali readers have long been fans of this detective. Sreejata Guha has recently been translating them into English to bring the stories to a wider audience.
8. The 65 Lakh Heist, and Daylight Robbery, by Surender Mohan Pathak. Blaft published these translations of the bestselling Hindi crime writer. These are books starring his popular anti-hero, Vimal, who is reluctantly conscripted into criminal capers.

Anarchist's Agenda

2010-02-28T03:22:00.000-08:00

[An edited version of this article appeared in the Deccan Herald on the 14th of February.]

Anarchist’s Agenda

(Review of The Diary Of An Unreasonable Man, by Madhav Mathur)

There’s a certain kind of urban, salaried young man who will instantly understand Madhav Mathur’s message in this book. The man who’s working a white-collar job, finding that the moral compromises he makes in the course of work weren’t on any syllabus in college. Who is beginning to get tired of the rat race for the new car, the new flat and whatever else everyone else wants.

For this reader, Mathur offers a thought-experiment: What if you stopped being part of the system, and instead decided to take on the people taking advantage of it? And what’s more, what if you actually went through with all those vaguely imagined pranks you’ve always thought would serve the villains right? And what if all those prankish plans executed perfectly, and people understood what you were trying to say and made you a folk hero?

The story stars Pranav Kumar, an advertising executive, whose normal state of mind is ‘sickened by hypocrisy’. After several years of working at writing advertising copy, he finally confesses to his boss that he can’t keep doing this job. Advertisers, he says, are the root of all the materialistic rot in society: “We’re building wants. We’re making an entire generation adopt cellphones and motorbikes as their goals. We’re to blame for discontentment. If we don’t get them through television, we always have papers, magazines, and billboards…”

Pranav quits his job and, together with two friends, decides to shock people into realizing the mess that society is in. The story chronicles all their “prove-the-point” practical jokes. For example: they bring over toxic sludge from a chemical factory and use it to prove that the factory owner was hand in glove with the Pollution Control Board. Or use a paint bomb in a local train to remind commuters that life is precious. Or expose all the regulars at a brothel to society.

What exactly Pranav wants to prove with his jokes is not exactly clear – the targets are all over the place, but one can imagine Mathur, at some point, daydreaming of them and going, “It would be so cool if someone did that!” The most consistent message, of course, is the anti-materialism one. Without this message, the book is just a series of practical jokes played on people and practices everyone loves to hate – industrialists, prostitutes’ customers, salesmen, fashion designers. It’s the message that gives some form to the book. In some ways, this is similar to the work of Chuck Palahniuk. But where Palahniuk takes one or two sentences to express his pop-cultural, cynical sentiments, Mathur fills up half a page with clunky ponderings. His forte is the action scenes, not all the philosophy and dialogue.

In fact, one can imagine Mathur playing the scenes in his head and putting them down on paper, the action playing out quickly, the characters’ voices providing the depth to the dialogues. But since we see only the bare words, that depth doesn’t come through. The book’s been blurbed by Anurag Kashyap, and someone like him would probably be able to transfer the book to screen well (as long as the speeches are kept short, of course).

Different writers have their own ways of placing their characters and story in recognized contexts. Stephen King uses common American brand names and advertising jingles. Palahniuk uses phrases from current slang and street talk. Vikram Chandra used Hindi curse words and Mumbai place names to set Sacred Games. Mathur, however, doesn’t do a very strong place setting of his people. The characters listen to Metal and Rock music (no bollywood?), and their conversation sounds generically current-desi. There are mentions of local trains and of contract killers, but very little else that places the book in Mumbai. It may have been deliberate, an attempt to make the book applicable to all white-collar-dominated cities in India, but the book would have benefited from setting it more strongly.

However, Mathur does have a distinctive voice, a hip attitude, and an interesting subject and approach. If he had revised it through a couple more drafts, or read it out loud to friends, it would have smoothened out the flow and removed clunky elements. Too many paragraphs feel like a first draft, and there are phrases and words that jar. In the most glaring example, the word ‘anarchist’ is used throughout the book as if it’s commonplace: by reporters, by police constables, by contract killers. It’s a bit of a stretch to believe that the word could be used as commonly as, say, terrorists – couldn’t it have been introduced more naturally?

It will be interesting to see what Mathur does next. If he can hone his voice, and channel the sentiments of upwardly mobile India, his books will be a much-needed gritty alternative to the current college-campus-set crop of writing.

Daylight Robbery

2010-02-01T01:44:00.000-08:00

An explosive plan that’s one bullet away from disaster.

A grizzled old card shark who wants to pull one last job before he retires from his life of crime.

A security officer with a dangerous penchant for gambling.

A hot-blooded beauty who judges a man by the thickness of his wallet.

And Vimal -- a man so desperate for a future that he's willing to commit
DAYLIGHT ROBBERY

"Surender Mohan Pathak was one of the two people I wanted to be as a kid. The other was Amitabh Bachchan." -Anurag Kashyap, Film maker

Translated by Sudarshan Purohit

And here's what's new: you can order it from the Blaft website directly now!

Angrez chale gaye, par...

2010-01-29T03:40:00.000-08:00

The latest issue of Tehelka magazine has a cover story entitled ‘The Phantom Reader’. It’s about how the book reading market is much smaller than publicized, how people read for education and information, how Chetan Bhagat rules over the pantheon, and so on.

What the feature - and the magazine cover, for that matter - glosses over is that this survey is only about the English books market. Now, the English market is a comparatively small and new market in India. Almost every other Indian language has a larger and more established market, with its own history and poplar genres. In my limited exposure, I already know a bit of the Hindi, Tamil, Marathi, Gujarati, and Bengali books market, and whatever conclusions the Tehelka feature comes to definitely do not apply to any of these others. It's a bit surprising to see Tehelka fall into this trap, because they're usually better than that.

But first, a look at their methodology. They interviewed 1,700 people in ‘leading bookstores’. I think it’s safe to say these were Crosswords, Landmarks, Odysseys and other such stores, not railway station bookstalls, street-corner stalls, or even lending libraries, that cater to a different (and much larger) set of readers. And, based on the crowd that comes to the ‘leading bookstores’ to buy English books, they’ve come to the conclusion that the Indian Reader reads mainly ‘for learning and education’, and ‘to improve his English’. Try doing this, Tehelka: stand outside a shop selling college textbooks and ask the crowd there why they read – you’ll get even more of the ‘learning and education’ response and you’ll be even happier. You’re already biasing the survey results by focusing on one type of reader, so why not take it to the logical conclusion? But don’t survey the railway station stall folks, because they’re buying their Ved Prakash Sharma or Rajesh Kumar or SMS Jokebooks or Manohar Kahaniyan for timepass, not learning.

The conclusions of this survey are listed here. Note how sweetly the “English” word disappears as you go down the page, trying to make you think this is about all readers in India. And make it a point to read through the other articles by IWE intelligentsia, and see how many of them even acknowledge the other markets. What's the point of all these articles if they're going to give an incomplete picture?

English media alone seems to have these blinders on. The media in every other Indian language recognizes that it is a part of a larger picture. Books reviews and interviews with intellectuals of other cultures are cheerfully published. Translations from other languages sell well in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Malayalam, and all literature is understood to be part of a whole. Why can’t the English media do that? By being so self-centred, it’s depriving its readers of a treasure of rich content from all over.

PS: To round out the picture, though, it’s not as if the other-Indian-language market is really booming right now. Publishers who, a few years ago, had annual sales of pulp fiction in lakhs, now find circulation down to tens of thousands (which is still okay, as compared to a couple of thousand for an average English book). My personal feeling is that other entertainment media – cheap pirated DVDs, cable television – are eating into the “read for pleasure” market. Of course, I can’t interview 1,700 people to be sure, so I could be wrong.

What the cyclist did

2010-01-28T02:09:00.001-08:00

[This is the unedited version of my review of The Perplexity of Hariya Hercules, by Manohar Shyam Joshi , published a few days back in Deccan Herald. They changed the title to "A man's gradual descent into insanity". I think I like my title better :) ]

What the cyclist did

It takes a while for you to realize that there’s no one narrator in The Perplexity of Hariya Hercules. The narrator of the story is the collective we, the entire clan that Hariya belongs to, the family who talks about him and the events surrounding him. There is no truth, no untruth, nothing marked believable or incredible – all you hear is what the family talks about and how it interprets what it knows. The whole cacophony of the family is captured here – the superstitious uncle, the greedy, alcoholic nephew, the doctor in the family, the press reporter cousin, the know-it-all teenager.

The plot is simple on the surface, but difficult to categorize. Harihar Dutt Tiwari, better known as Hariya Hercules, lives with and cares for his paralyzed, blind father, “Rai Saip” Girvan Dutt Tiwari. It’s a miserable life – Rai Saip is temperamental and difficult to care for, and Hariya has a low-paying job. Their social life consists of Hariya cycling over to relatives’ homes on weekends on his Hercules bicycle (hence the nickname), reporting about his father’s health to them in excruciating detail (“Today I couldn’t get all [his shit] out even with my hand.”), and getting updates from them to report back. When his father dies suddenly, Hariya looks through his belongings and finds evidence of his father getting “cursed” by a priest. He decides to set off to find this priest and temple, and never returns. An aunt who accompanied him reports a strange sequence of events that transpired, which don’t exactly match other witnesses’ versions.
But this is only the basic plot. Hariya’s story can be looked at as a man’s gradual descent into insanity. Or it’s a spiritual tale revolving around a curse. Or it could be about a simpleton bilked by greedy relatives. It all depends on who in the family is telling the story. And the family itself recognizes the multitude of meanings, and is conscious that it should select the version that makes it feel good about itself. In the broader sense, the story is about how a family creates and assimilates its own folklore.

Joshi has given us a family that talks sort of like ours, but still has that little strangeness to it. The modes of address are different – “Ija”, “Kainja”, “Bhinju”. It is some time before we figure out that this is a Kumaoni family, with their own dialect. One feels sort of like a non-Hindi speaker reading a book with the normal Hindi addresses – “Chacha”, “Bapu”, etc. – we have the same experience when we read it as Indians of a different community.

It’s also nice to see that there’s no glossary or other attempt to translate the unfamiliar words into English – whatever you understand, you understand through context. There’s also no attempt to use exotic or unfamiliar words in the translation just because it’s an Indian book. The language comes across as very earthy and day-to-day, the rhythms of Hindi are captured and made to feel a part of the English text.

Manohar Shyam Joshi is probably best known as the writer of the TV serial Hum Log. I was too young to appreciate the serial when it first aired, but this book demonstrates anew that Joshi knew how Indian families behave, and I felt an urge to go back and watch the serial. The brief introduction to Joshi’s other books on the flap reveals a very interesting repertoire. This, perhaps, is the biggest success of this book – introducing the English reader to a multi-faceted literary personality and making him want to read more.

Darkness in Delhi

2010-01-18T02:04:00.000-08:00

[This is the longer version of my review of Delhi Noir, which was published in an edited form by Deccan Herald a couple of weeks back.]

Darkness in Delhi

The title’s a bit of a shocker. Noir, set in Delhi? As in, fedora-and-overcoat-clad detectives looking for Maltese falcons, in Delhi? But then you think a bit, and the idea sounds appealing. Noir, after all, isn’t only private eyes and dames packing lead. At its core, it’s about the blackness of human nature, about the corruption that even the most innocent are capable of. And Delhi, with its layers of history and its confluence of cultures, would be the perfect showcase for this form of fiction.

Yet the introductory note to the book, by Hirsh Sawhney, puts you off. He wonders: “Why explains the lack of noir set in Delhi?”, and goes on to postulate that it’s because delhiites are too scared or hypocritic to want to read about the unpalatable parts of Delhi life. Here’s a better answer to the question: Maybe you’re looking in the wrong places. Fiction written in English, and the coverage of the English press, are thin and recently-created layers over the seething broth of Delhi culture. Look at Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi publishing to see the rest of the story. To take an easy example: Surender Mohan Pathak, the bestselling Hindi pulp writer, has a series of novels starring the opportunistic private detective Sudhir Kohli, the self-professed “Dilli ka kameena” (Delhi scoundrel). Or, look through the issues of the long-running pulp magazine Manohar Kahaniyan, which features true crime and short stories. In Delhi Noir, there’s exactly one story originally written in Hindi, by Uday Prakash – why not source more such?

As it stands, however, Delhi Noir is a pretty good anthology. There are 14 new stories by different writers, ranging from bestselling veterans to newbies just starting out. Its part of a series by New York-based small press Akashic Books, who have previously published noir anthologies set in San Francisco, Paris, London, and a dozen other cities. This is the first time they’re publishing an India-based collection. The series is licensed by Harper Collins in India.

The stories are divided into three thematic sections: the police force, the young generation, and the immigrant population. The themes are just starting points for the stories, and they take off in entirely different directions, providing a varied experience of the city. Everyone’s favourite story is likely to be different here – I had a soft spot for Uday Prakash’s tale of a sweeper who finds a hidden store of cash, and for Meera Nair’s story set in the underworld of the Inter State Bus Terminal. The one held up as a representative of the book in several reviews, the I. Allan Sealy story, didn’t work for me though – perhaps because of the excellent language. Somehow, the idea of a rickshaw wala talking about “listening to Sufi fat-boy tapes” and explaining that “his spirit clad me, sliding over me like a lover’s hand” didn’t seem convincing. And the first story by Omair Ahmed, about a private detective and the ’84 riots, seems to be trying too hard to fit in “Noir” and “Delhi” into the flow. But all the stories are competent enough, read well, and have the required dose of darkness.

Special mention must be made of Manjula Padmanabhan’s story, ‘Cull’, set in a future Delhi. The story really works as a metaphor for Delhi, no, India’s spirit of making the best of the situation and coming out on top by whatever means.

Corruption, being a large part of the common man’s experience with most established institutions in India, plays a part in several stories. This is especially true of all the police characters, not a single one of which are completely honest and idealistic.

One question to think about is how closely the stories need to be set in Delhi. Noir as a genre is a fairly universal, as opposed to say Partition stories, which could be set only in India, and only in a specific time period. So several of these plots could be set in different parts of the world, with local characters, and work just as well. But then, if the stories had been entirely focused on Delhi quirks and events, the appeal to the audience would have gone down. The book makes a sensible balance between the two extremes in this case.

It would be interesting to have a counterpart to this book, composed entirely of stories written by Hindi or Punjabi writers. Considering that a lot of the inner workings of the city happen in one of those languages, it would probably have a more insider’s look at the city. Most of the stories in Delhi Noir revolve around a certain level of society – press reporters, college students, private detectives, advertising executives – and we need more stories from below the glass ceiling of English – street urchins, immigrants, shopkeepers, clerks.

While we’re thinking of counterparts, how about a set of stories set in older Delhis, before the liberalization age that Sawhney refers to in the introduction? The focus of this book is squarely on current Delhi, and that’s not a bad focus to have either, but one wonders about what the seedy side of Delhi was like, say, twenty or thirty years ago.

Overall, this is an interesting anthology . It exposes the reader to a varied selection of stories, leaves him wanting more, and – as in the foregoing paragraphs – thinking about all the directions the genre can go in the Indian context. I’m looking forward to a couple more Delhi volumes, atleast one Mumbai Noir volume, and a small-town India volume – Jhumri Talaiya Noir, maybe?

The Art of Shelle

2009-12-27T22:34:00.000-08:00

Mustajab Ahmed Siddiqui, better known as Shelle, has been painting book covers for Hindi pulp fiction for many years now. The style is distinctive and has been copied by many imitators - you'll have seen it if you've ever glanced over a railway station bookstall at all the hindi books.

Here's a photo set of his covers. This contains about 50 of them - will add to the set as I scan books from my collection:

Recently, Blaft publications brought out a post card book of his covers, titled Heroes, Gundas, Vamps, and Good Girls: Hindi Pulp Cover Art. This contains 25 covers, and also a short blurb providing a translation and some context around the cover. The collage cover of this one's a piece of art in itself:

Anchored to the Past

2009-12-17T03:47:00.000-08:00

[The following book review of Farewell Red Mansion, by Sharat Kumar, appeared, with some edits, in the Deccan Herald a while ago]

One problem with reading a translated book is not knowing whether the negatives you find in the book were there in the original or whether they crept in during the translation and editing. It’s a bit like watching a ‘theater-print’ of a movie on a pirated DVD and wondering whether the colours were faded in the original or in the DVD.

The source of some problems in this book, though, is clear. The grammar has typically Indian mistakes – ‘the’s are missing where needed; odd usages of words come in sometimes – ‘would’ instead of ‘will’. There are also places where words that are ‘not quite right’ are used – for example, “it is too late to retrieve your steps”, where ‘retrace’ was the right word. The editing and translation definitely needed to be tighter.

But at points when the storyline goes off track, it isn’t obvious whether the Hindi version had the same issues. Towards the end, an unlikeable character suddenly turns desirable with no reason or rationale – this could have been an issue in the original Hindi as well. The way the climax is presented is a surprise and a letdown. All the little problems leave you wondering what a better-done version of this story would have been like.

The core plot itself is passable. The book opens with Samar coming back to Meerut, to meet his dying father for the last time. Afterwards, he decides to sell off the family house, the 'Lal Kothi' or Red Mansion, and starts looking around for a buyer. The house is on prime property, however, and there are many buyers, each trying their own methods to get their hands on the house. Samar and one other relative, Virendra, are the only morally upright characters here, and both are depicted as being anchored to the past. The story takes you through the corruption and hook-or-crook politics rife in small-town India. The events leave you feeling squeamish, like watching a saas-bahu serial or an accident waiting to happen, and yet wanting to know what happens next.

In parallel is the story of Samar’s father, Samarendra, and his wife Rukmini, set in pre-independence India. Samarendra is a college professor and Rukmini is an activist with the Congress party. The story follows them through three or four years as Rukmini makes fiery speeches, saves prostitutes, goes to jail, praises Gandhiji, and gives birth to Samar. All the characters in this segment are idealistic, good-looking, deeply philosophical, and so on, a complete contrast to Samar’s segment of the story.

The two parallel threads serve to underline the author’s viewpoint that values in India society have degenerated in the past few decades. However, with real people having an annoying tendency of being shades of grey instead of black and white, the corruption described in the book probably existed in all eras, so the pre-independence section seems painfully naïve. Looking at the book from this angle turns it into a literary version of "In our days, things were so much better…!"

One of the annoying things about the book is that every so often, characters launch into unrelated philosophical and historical discussions. This works if it’s well done (such passages are popular in Hindi literature), but in this case the language suddenly turns preachy and the reader is put off.

The original Hindi book, Lal Kothi Alvida, has been the subject of a TV serial, broadcast on Doordarshan. Sharat Kumar himself also directed a film, Duvidha, based on the novel. Besides this book, he has written two management related books, and novels and short story collections in Hindi.

"Frodo is still around"

2009-07-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

[This essay of mine appeared, slightly edited, in the Deccan Herald a couple of weeks back. In case you clicked on that link, the essay is in the second half of the page]

Frodo is still around

In the 60s, a strange bit of graffiti began appearing on walls in the US. “Frodo Lives!” it said. Frodo was Frodo Baggins, the diminutive hero of The Lord of the Rings, a fantasy novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, which had only just become available in a paperback edition, and so was beginning to reach millions of readers. The characters, the story, and the setting of the novel rapidly won over the hearts of the reading population, and brought Fantasy back into the mainstream. Rings had became a symbol of the times, sometimes identified with the hippie movement and sometimes interpreted as a pro-establishment story.
Rings also gave birth to a whole new subgenre: Tolkienesque Fantasy, with its wizards, elves, dragons, muscular heroes and medieval setting. More properly called Medievalist Fantasy, this has been the most common avatar of Fantasy until recently. Some of the most iconic Medievalist Fantasy books are: The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, the lesser known but much richer Gormenghast series by Mervyn Peake, and the Conan the Barbarian stories by Robert E. Howard. Go to the Fantasy section of your favourite bookstore, and the Medievalist Fantasy titles are easily identified by their fantastic (pardon the pun) covers.
In 1997, the dominance of Medieval Fantasy was seriously challenged by a new book about a schoolboy who finds out he’s a wizard. The Harry Potter books, by J.K. Rowling, were set in London and around, and in a time period that was close to the current day, breaking the expectations from Fantasy books. There have been other such books before – the books of Charles de Lint come to mind – but the Harry Potter books have a magic all their own. They’re an endearing combination of kids’ school stories, adventure, and magic. Harry is neither superhuman, nor extraordinarily intelligent – in fact, some of his friends are smarter and stronger than him – but he’s braver and more determined than the rest. And, Rowling seems to say, that is what really make you a hero. The Harry Potter books were made into hit movies and video games as well, and even today, two years after the series ended, its popularity shows no signs of waning.
The success of the Potter books brought the focus back on two subgenres of Fantasy – Urban Fantasy, which is set in cities and towns similar to the ones we live in, and Coming-of-Age Fantasy, where the protagonists are young folks. There have since been dozens of books in these genres, more so in the latter. The Artemis Fowl series, a more action-oriented series with magical elements, is a good example.
Besides prose fiction, comics and movies have had their own high points in the Fantasy genre. Neil Gaiman, now better known as a prose writer, hit the big time with his comic series, Sandman, which was about the King of Dreams and his dark, quirky, world populated by beings from mythology and overlapping with our own. Unlike most other comics, this series had a proper beginning and end, and the characters were better etched than in most novels. In Hollywood movies, most fantasy films are based on books or existing concepts – The Wizard of Oz and The Lord of the Rings being good examples. But Japanese cinema, and especially Anime, has had a long tradition of original fantasy films, with Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, both by Hayao Miyazaki, being well known examples. Indian movies have had their own share of Fantasy, with movies ranging from Hatim Tai and Ali Baba aur Chalis Chor, to Ajooba and Jajantaram Mamantaram.
In India, the development of Fantasy writing as a genre has taken a different path, with different milestones. The first recognized prose work in modern Hindi, Chandrakanta, by Babu Devkinandan Khatri, was a fantasy. It was written in short chapters, called bayaan, which were published individually and distributed to waiting fans. Such was its influence that people learnt Hindi just to be able to read this book. After completing Chandrakanta, Khatri wrote several sequels, starting with the multi-volume Chandrakanta Santati.
Chandrakanta was set in a world of kings and princesses, and featured concepts that were borrowed both from Indian tales and Persian folklore. For example, it talked of a magical spell called Tilism, which was a kind of trap door world. Once it is entered, there is no exit until a puzzle or trick is solved, or else, until a specific person comes into the Tilism. Interestingly, one of the most popular Urdu fantasy books is the Tilism-e-Hoshruba, which was a sprawling multi-volume opus originally written by Muhammad Husain ‘Jah’ and Ahmed Husain Qamar in the late 1870s and 1880s.
Of late, there have been several writers in India writing in the Fantasy tradition. Samit Basu, with his Gameworld Trilogy, is probably the best known. But there are many others too, such as Appupen, who’s ready to release a fantasy graphic novel named Moonward in next month. Writers who are reinterpreting mythical tales, such as Devdutt Pattanaik, with his The Pregnant King, could also be said to be using Fantasy tropes, although in India, this is a thin distinction.
In many forms, in many media, Fantasy has been with us for a long time. Going by the way it has always reinvented itself to remain fresh, it probably will remain with us in the future as well.

---------------

Five must-read Fantasy series:
1. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien. What, you haven’t read it yet?
2. The Harry Potter series, by J. K. Rowling. The series that brought children to books again.
3. The Sandman series, by Neil Gaiman. They’re graphic novels, sure. But the depth of Gaiman’s writing makes this one of the richest fantasy worlds ever.
4. Chandrakanta and its sequels, by Babu Devkinandan Khatri. It isn’t just one book, there are three multi-volume sequels as well. Ignore the soap-operatic Doordarshan serial, and read this amazing series in the original Hindi.
5. Discworld, by Terry Pratchett. A twenty-plus volume comic fantasy series set on a flat world that’s mounted on the back of a turtle. Oh, and Death himself is a major character in this series– he rides a horse named Binkie.

Just not in the order you wanted

2009-06-30T03:34:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was bracketed by a very fun Friday evening and Monday evening, getting together with a bunch of great folks and talking. [Thanks, guys!] Reminded me of how few times I've had such conversations, ranging from books to music to plays, since I came to Bangalore. Discussions with colleagues have mostly been around office stuff, buying houses, or whatever the ToI got paid to print that day.

I also watched a movie called Bolt, which is nice if you like cartoons and/or have ever had a dog.

Got me thinking about how life tends to note down whatever you wish for, at random times, and then scramble up the order when it grants those wishes.

A long time back, when I was still in Pune, there was this evening when I stood at the main gate of my home, and looked around. The mango tree was dropping tiny raw mangoes every few minutes, and the fragrance was all around. The old family car was parked in the front yard, and I glanced towards the tall window next to the front door. The window extended all the way down to the floor, and as always, our dog was standing behind that window, barking happily at me and wagging his tail.

The thought came to mind that one day, all these things - the tree, the car, the window with my dog on the other side would remain as they were, and I'd wind up leaving Pune forever - perhaps with a change of job, perhaps with some change in mood or something else out of control. Then when I came back to visit, I'd see everything and remember the last time I stood here, like this. And then I'd get messages from my family - we've changed the car, the tree has grown, the dog is getting old, someone broke the windowpane and we changed it.

It didn't work out that way. A few months after that day, a crack appeared in the front wall of the house. To repair it, the workmen said, we must rebuild that wall. The window disappeared, and was replaced by a smaller one that didn't reach down to the floor. The mango tree got infected by some sort of worms, and began to dry up. The car got sold and replaced by another one.

And one night, after I'd gone with my dog to the vet, and been assured that he would be all right now, he died. We buried him at a spot he'd liked to go to when he was young.

Through all this, I remained there in Pune.

By the time I finally got a job offer worth looking at, and came to Bangalore, all the things I'd noted that long ago evening had disappeared. Life had gotten the order of my thoughts wrong.

Something tells me that by the time all the things I wish for right now are granted, they won't matter to me, or, Monkey's Paw style, will come true in such a way that I won't want them.

Excuse the melancholy mood, folks. Happens sometimes.

Backyard Bestsellers, or, Making it to the front page

2009-05-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in my last post, I got asked to write an article on pulp fiction for the Deccan Herald, and the article was published in it's Sunday edition. First page. Lead story. Phew! :)

Here's the article as I sent it, with one minor correction that a couple of readers pointed out.

Gems in the Backyard

U.R. Ananthamurthy said, “Every language in India has a front yard and a back yard – except for English and Sanskrit, which only have front yards.” While the front yard of language grows serious literature and official grammar, back yards are where the fun parts bloom - stories written for entertainment, jokes, cartoons, ever-evolving slang, experiments. In the wildest, most uncontrolled, part of the backyard grows pulp fiction. It consists of tales written purely for entertainment, with literary merit being secondary. Pulp’s customers are the most demanding of all – they want their money’s worth of entertainment for every paisa they spend. Pulp is printed on the cheapest possible paper, produced in huge quantities, sold at the rock-bottom prices at places where people want something to pass time with on journeys– railway stations and bus stands.

A few decades back, pulp fiction used to be a major force in English-language publishing in the west. But English language pulp has gone through a selection process in the US and England. Of the hundreds of writers churning out pulp stories by the dozen in those years, the best have been chosen as favourites by readers, and are today considered classic. Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, James Hadley Chase once started out getting published in the pulp format. Today they’re considered prose stylists and are held up as examples of how to write good, gripping stories.

This filtration process has only just started in India. It is held back by the peculiar contempt that the English media has for other Indian languages, and beyond that, by the contempt that the literary world in each language has for its pulp tradition.

Yet, the best of pulp writing in each language has its own fan base. Surender Mohan Pathak is one such writer who has developed a cult following in Hindi. He’s been writing detective and thriller novels for over 50 years, and has 269 books to his credit. Conservative estimates put his total sales at 2.5 crore copies sold – no mean feat. Most of his books have had an initial print run of 1 lakh copies. Ved Prakash Sharma is considered the largest selling writer in India, and his Vardi Wala Gunda alone is reputed to have sold over a crore copies. Numbers like this are par for the course in most Indian languages – Rajesh Kumar, who’s written over 1,500 Tamil pulp novels, writes 5 short novels a month, and in the 80s, sold over 1 lakh copies of each of his books in the first print run. Ibn-e-Safi is considered an iconic writer in Urdu, so much so that Agatha Christie considered him the only original writer of detective novels in the subcontinent. His books are still in print and selling well in India and Pakistan, 60 years after they were first published.

Like most other English-educated Indians, I was only vaguely aware of the size of this industry, until I noticed and bought a book titled The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction one day. It was an excellently produced work, with a great range of translated stories from Tamil, and a section reprinting the original lurid covers. I wrote a review of it on my blog, and wondered when someone would give a similar treatment to Hindi pulp.

The next day, there was a comment from Blaft, asking me whether I would be interested in doing a translation from Hindi to English myself. After the initial hesitation, I was only too glad to take up the offer. Together, we zeroed in on a book called Painsath Lakh ki Dakaiti by Surender Mohan Pathak, which has sold over 3 lakh copies and has been reprinted 15 times, and decided to go to Delhi to talk to Pathak himself.

The trip was a revelation. Pathakji turned out to be a genial old Delhi gentleman who took the translation project as a lark – he gets 4 lakhs for the first print run of every Hindi book he writes, and the amounts involved in English publishing looked tiny to him. Besides him, we also met Mr. Rajkumar Gupta, who runs Raja Pocket Books, Pathak ji’s publisher. He wondered what the hullabaloo was over Chetan Bhagat – was a few lakh copies sold such a large sum in English? We also met Shelle, the cover artist for thousands of Hindi pulp books – he has been in the business since 1971 and takes just two days per cover painting.

Though I was awed by the numbers involved, all of these people said that the Hindi pulp industry has actually reduced in size. In its heyday in the 80s, there were five times as many publishers and writers. This was an era before the advent of cable TV and the new, slick Bollywood, when fans flocked to bookshops to buy the newest book of their favourite writer. At the time, English writing in India hadn’t yet turned into the official representative of India to the world. The world of Hindi pulp has since retreated into the background. It’s still huge and self-sufficient, but it’s unnoticed today by any but its fans.

The 65 Lakh Heist, the English translation of Painsath Lakh ki Dakaiti was published in April, 2009, by Blaft, and it’s one step towards showcasing the Hindi language backyard. While it may be the first time Pathak ji has been translated into English, it’s not the only project of its kind. Ibn-e-Safi’s books are being translated as well (by Blaft as well as Random House), and there is a sequel to Tamil Pulp Fiction in the works. Several other publishers are now considering going along a similar path.

Indian Pulp fiction has made in mark on other media as well. Agent Vinod, hero of several 60s pulp books, not only featured in an eponymous 1977 movie, but is also the topic of Sriram Raghavan’s newest movie project, starring Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor. Several of Ved Prakash Sharma’s books have been made into Bollywood movies, and Gulshan Nanda (though his work lived in the area between pulp and popular fiction) even scripted several movies himself – including Kati Patang and Neelkamal. Several Tamil pulp writers moonlight as scriptwriters for movies. And Parshuram Sharma and S.C. Bedi, who specialized in horror and Young Adult books, respectively, also did many Hindi comics.

Theodore Sturgeon famously said, “99% of everything is crap.” The rule applies to every kind of media and entertainment. But a corollary would be, “About 1% of any media is good.” Dashiell Hammett and James Hadley Chase rose into that 1% of English pulp, and are now immortalized. Are we making any effort to find the 1%, the gems, in our own languages’ backyards?

Press Coverage part 3, and some random thoughts

2009-05-20T04:04:00.000-07:00

As you'd expect from a nerd like me, I've been googling for "65 lakh heist" three times a day for the past month. Which has shown me a few interesting things. First, that the number of results changes every hour or so. Doesn't necessarily go up, though. There seem to be websites that just aggregate all possible search terms and populate junk pages with them, and Google finds them a couple of times and then somehow removes them from search results. So you see 712 results now, and 715 results in an hour, and back to 690 the next morning. Fortunately, Google removes most of these dummy results so you don't have to wade through them.

The same sort of situation happens for book sales in the real world. My info on whether the book is doing well comes from Blaft, who get it from their distributors, who get it from... dunno, bookshops and regional offices and whatnot. So I still don't know whether or not the book's doing well enough. Oh well. At least all the reviews so far have been positive.

Speaking of which:

Chandrahas Choudhary wrote a glowing review of the book for Mint, and also posted it on his blog, The Middle Stage. The same post also became the first syndicated column of his that featured on Ultrabrown. Going by Google results, this dude is (justly) awesomely popular - more than half of the genuine results of my daily search are folks who list him on their blogroll, and so have a link to his review on one side of their blog.

Ullah Faiz, over at the UTVi site, writes a post in which he reviews both Daniyal Mueenuddin and 65 Lakh Heist. Good to hear 65 Lakh Heist get mentioned in the same breath as the newest literary sensation :).

The Global Post is an American agency that runs a website featuring articles by independent reporters. Several of these articles get syndicated by mainstream media. Mark Scheffler posts a video interview and short article on Global Post featuring Pathak ji reading from the book, and also comparing his writing to toothbrushes and pizzas (?).

The Global Post article makes its way to the blog of The Complete Review, a world literature site.

Besides all these, Blaft takes an interview of Surender Mohan Pathak himself, recording a long video, and turning it into a proper interview on YouTube. Watch this one!

Sridhar Raghavan, yes, *the* Sridhar Raghavan, mentions The 65 Lakh Heist as his most recently read book in an interview with Tehelka magazine. Hope he passes it on to Anurag Kashyap too...

There's one more interesting development. Deccan Herald asked me to write something about pulp fiction last week, which got published in their Sunday edition. Will post the text of that article in a separate post.

Now if only I could figure out how the book itself is doing!

Eating Kulfi in Delhi

2009-04-30T01:01:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks back I was in Delhi, attending a launch party for the book (will write in more detail about that in the next post). The day after the party, I and my wife and father had some time on our hands, and we did some sightseeing.

Before pushing off to the Qutub Minar and so on, Dad told us about a nice place in Karol Bagh which served good snacks - we could have a good brunch there. And so we set off. We had chat, lassi, pakodas, and then I thought of having a plate of kulfi to end things.

The menu for kulfi had some six items on it: Apple Kulfi, Orange Kulfi, Muskmelon Kulfi, Malai Kulfi, and some other stuff. I chose Orange Kulfi, to see what it was like. After taking the money, they said they were out of Orange, would I like Muskmelon, since it was the same price?

Okay, I said.

Behind the counter, two guys set to making the kulfi plate. Now I don't know what sort of kulfi you've had, but from what I know of it, a plate of kulfi usually involves one stick of kulfi, sliced into four or eight pieces, with some toppings. Since this was Muskmelon kulfi, I expected that they would either put bits of melon on top, or have it mixed into the milk while making the kulfi.

About 10 minutes went by. They were still readying the plate. At one point, I noticed them put a large pile of kulfi-coloured pieces in a plastic plate, push the plate to one side, and continue cutting. Ah, I said to my wife. They seem to be cutting the entire day's supply right now since we're the first folks to order Muskmelon Kulfi.

Finally, the two guys turned towards us, each holding a plate piled high, and put them on the counter. One of them called to me and said, "Leejiye sir."

I must have looked confused, because the guy continued, "Aapki Kharbooja kulfi."

I said, "I only ordered one kulfi." From the size of the plates, it looked like half a dozen kulfi sticks had been cut up.

"No, this is one plate. It's one muskmelon stuffed with kulfi."

I stared at the plates. It was indeed one complete muskmelon, opened out, filled with kulfi ingredients, and then closed and frozen, and finally cut into chunks. There was no way I could eat all that.

I carried the plates back to our table. Dad and my wife stared at them, then up at me. "How many plates did you order?" my wife says.
...
...
...
To make a stomach-churning story short, we finally picked out the kulfi parts, left all of the melon parts, and made sure to eat very light meals through the rest of the day.

When we'd finally finished the plates, my dad said, "Thank goodness they didn't have a watermelon kulfi option."

Invitation to a Reading

2009-04-14T04:01:00.000-07:00

Here's where I'll be this Friday:

From 65lh

If you'd like to come, let me know. It should be interesting!

The 65 Lakh Heist: Press Coverage, Part 2

2009-04-08T07:41:00.000-07:00

A few more newspapers/mags have mentioned The 65 Lakh Heist over the past month. Here's a summary.

First, a couple of online-only links: BusinessWorld has a nice long review of the book on their web site. The reason they gave for not printing it in the mag itself is that we sent the book to them too late (?).

My friend George Thomas has talked about the book on his blog, here. Thanks, dude!

On to print mentions: Indian Express and Screen both carried the same story about Blaft, with some mentions of the book. The Screen story is here.

Timeout, all three Indian editions of it, carry a review of the book in their 3rd April edition. Here's the link to the Bangalore site.

For some reason, The Hindu's Trivandrum edition features the book in it's weekly reading list in its 12th March edition. Waiting for the remaining editions of the paper to pick it up.

Finally, one offline-only mention: Time Asia, THE Time Asia, has mentioned The 65 Lakh Heist as one of '5 Picks of the Week' in it's March 23 edition. Other picks are a Wong-Kar Wai movie and Eminem's newest album. Interesting company! :)

What Delhi-6 made me feel like

2009-03-19T03:05:00.001-07:00

People are still talking about how bad Delhi-6 was, so I thought of putting down my own experience here. I was reminded of this story after watching the movie:

[Close up of my face, narrating, as the screen dissolves into the past, and sitar-type music plays]

When I lived in Trivandrum, my parents joined up this organization of North Indians, called Sangam. We'd all meet every Holi and Diwali, some folks would put up a cultural show, and everyone would eat chewy puris and aloo subzi and other 'North Indian' food, then go home.

One year, the Cultural Secretary was this irritating guy who could turn any conversation into a sermon. He turned himself into the emcee of the evening. After the mandatory Ganpati prayer, he strode onto stage and announced a 'surprise contest'. The winner, he said, would get an 'interesting prize'.

A few naive folks perked up at this. Irritating Guy (I.G. for short), ushered a little girl into stage, and said, "This young lady has recently joined Sangam. I invite her to sing a song for you." The kid began singing - in Bengali.

After it was over, I.G. continued, "Now, I would like to challenge you all to guess where this young lady comes from. She just sang a Bengali song - she will sing some more songs soon."
After a couple of other skits, the girl came back, and sang a Marathi song. Then, later on, a Gujarati song.

I.G. carried a big box wrapped in shiny gift-wrap onto the stage, and said, "Please put in your name, and your guess as to what this lady is, onto a chit and put it into this box. The winner will get an interesting prize."

I was already annnoyed with the whole thing by this time, so I slipped off with my friends and played at cops-and-robbers in the parking lot. We could hear the sound from the hall from here, though.

The girl came once or twice more, to sing in two other languages. Then I.G. was back, "Only ten minutes more, friends! Please put in your guesses as to whether she is Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, or something else, and win a prize!"

One of my friends wanted to put in a chit. The rest of us were already finding something fishy about it, and didn't go.

Half an hour later, after the mandatory satiric Hindi skit and the folk dance, I.G. began again. "I have looked through your entries, friends! And I am sad to say, NONE of you got it right! You have all written Gujarati or Marathi. You have all turned this poor girl into a local person! She is not any of those, she is only an Indian, a Hindustani! It is this kind of thinking that is dividing our country! we must be together, friends, and not let these petty things divide us! We must consider ourselves Indians first and foremost! Repeat after me: JAI HIND!"

The response that followed was rather more muted than expected. But a few second later, an angry buzzing broke out from the audience. They had expected something stupid, but this was clearly even worse. I.G. got dozens of angry looks that evening during the puri-aloo-sabzi party. I overheard several people promise to each other that they wouldn't be voting for this guy to organize anything, ever again. I.G. probably never knew what he'd done wrong.

-----

And that, ladies and gents, is the exact same feeling I had when I watched Delhi-6.

Holi in Bangalore

2009-03-11T02:24:00.000-07:00

Our society secretary sent out a mail a couple of days back, informing us that the Holi bonfire would be burned last evening, and the celebration with colours on the morning thereafter, i.e. today. Not knowing quite what to expect, my wife and I decided to go to the bonfire.

There was a big crowd of folks all around the fire. When we'd started, my wife called up her mother and asked her what we were supposed to do at a Holi celebration. "Offer some money at the pooja," she said. "Take some mamraa, and sindoor, and..." but my wife had forgotten everything except the money part by the time the conversation was over. So I had some money in my pocket.

As we got closer, it became obvious that the crowd was almost entirely composed of North Indians. All young couples, some with little kids - the typical profile of the new Bangalore citizen. Our society is a pretty posh place, so lots of folks in Bermudas, cargoes, snazzy clothes, babies in prams, et al. I looked around for the Pooja thali, where I've usually been instructed to put money in, during previous religious functions.

There wasn't one. A couple of sari-clad ladies had their pooja thalis, and were just walking away from the fire having completed their ritual, but these were obviously not society-wide poojas. The noise level was lower than usual in crowds this size. A few folks were capturing the fire and the crowds on their handycams.

Someone began to walk around the fire, hands in a namaskar, lips mumbling a prayer. Three more people followed him. Many, many others looked at each other, unsure of whether they were supposed to do that. The girl next to me asked her husband if he wanted to do it. He replied with a laugh, "I could, but don't expect me to do this seven times." They finally stayed put.

There was an awkward silence, when all the conversations in a room stop suddenly. It struck me that no one here really knew what they were supposed to do for the Holi pooja. They'd seen their parents do something, and were gathered here hoping that someone would do it all and they would follow the lead. But here they were the parents. Worse, everyone was from a different state, so probably there was no common thing, no ritual, no comforting pattern, that everyone could fall back on. It was probably like this in every big society in Bangalore, this evening. The fire burned on, the only one here who knew what its job was.

A mobile phone began to ring, somewhere behind me. A voice answered it with a palpable sense of relief. "Hello? Yes, Happy Holi to you, too!... Yes, we're just celebrating Holi here... yes, all of our society, all together..." Technology had saved us all from a bad moment.

The next day would be easier, we said to ourselves. All we have to do is smear colours on each other and shout Holi Hai! And we headed back to our houses recently turned to homes.

I'd forgotten all about the money I'd taken along. I'll use it at Diwali, I thought.

Hey, I did that!

2009-03-04T21:25:00.000-08:00

Kottke.org has a post today about "Nature's Great Events", this amazing BBC nature program. There's a video clip there, too, from an episode where a giant school of sardines is attacked simultaneously by birds, seals, dolphins and sharks.

You know something? I've seen that episode. Very very carefully. Because my Mom and I subtitled it in Hindi! We were working as freelance subtitlers for C-DAC's subtitling cell a few years back and we got this particular episode to do. I don't know whether the BBC finally used those subtitles. Was an interesting experience, though. Later on, my Mom got another episode about polar bears, too, but I hadn't helped her with that one.

If I'd known then that the subtitling experience would come in handy in translation, I'd probably have been more enthusiastic about helping out :).

The 65 Lakh Heist: Press Coverage

2009-03-01T22:08:00.000-08:00

I woke up yesterday, the 1st of March, at 7 AM, and bounded to the front door to check out the newspaper. Rifled through it, didn't find what I was looking for. Tried to go back to sleep, but couldn't. Decided to check my mail.
There it was - a mail from a friend with links. The articles had been published in the Indian Express (which doesn't get to Bangalore), and the Delhi edition of Times of India (and not any other edition). So, one way or another, no one in Bangalore knew of any of this. Oh well.

But the Indian Express had a nice huge article, in all its editions. The link I got: http://epaper.indianexpress.com/IE/IEH/2009/03/01/index.shtml . Scroll down about halfway through the right-hand list of pages, click on the page labelled "The Word". There you go. And in case you want to read the actual text: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/pulping-hot/428885/0 .

The Delhi ToI had a smaller article, more focused on Pathak himself, and on the experience of reading Hindi pulp. The epaper version is at http://epaper.timesofindia.com . Select the date as March 01, and go to page 10. The article is on the lower right side. If you just want the text : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-4206344,prtpage-1.cms .

Stay tuned for more self-congratulatory lists of links :).

At Kala Ghoda

2009-02-06T02:55:00.000-08:00

The Kala Ghoda Arts Festival is, I'm told, a great place to hang out, see stuff and meet people. As a direct consequence of The Sixty-five Lakh Heist, and the discussions around it, I've been invited to participate in a panel discussion there. Yes, me, of all people. There are some very interesting folks on the panel, and Jerry Pinto is moderating.

One thing that should interest folks is that we'll be playing a short set of excerpts from an interview with Surender Mohan Pathak during this panel. There'll also be some talk about pulp covers in Hindi, Tamil and others.

In short, if you're in Mumbai on the 9th Feb, make sure you make it to the David Sassoon Library, by 8:30 PM. Would be nice to have someone in the audience who knows me, too ;).

2009-02-02T00:10:00.000-08:00

Though it's not final and requires a bit of touch up, here's the cover page of the most important book of the year (as far as I'm concerned, anyway):

Painsath Lakh ki Dakaiti was a landmark in Hindi pulp fiction, when it first appeared several decades ago. It's been reprinted 15 times by 7 different publishers, and has sold more than 3 Lakh copies. It kickstarted a new genre in Hindi pulp thrillers - a hero who is a wanted felon, who's broken out of jail and continues to commit crimes.

And the cover above is of the translated English version, published by Blaft, coming out by the end of Feb.

Okay, so why is this the most important book of the year for me?

Forunately for me, the folks at Tehelka magazine have published the answer on their site, saving me the trouble. See for yourself.

So now I'm famous, apparently :)

2009-01-28T03:27:00.000-08:00

Have you heard of Surender Mohan Pathak? Perhaps you've seen his name at Railway Station book stalls, the way I've been seeing since childhood. But here are ten things I hadn't known about him until a few months ago.

1. He writes about 4 novels a year. For each of these, he gets about 4 lakh rupees for the initial print run.

2. He's been writing since 1959. His first story, 57 Saal Purana Aadmi (The 57-year-old man), was published then. And his first novel, Operation Budapest, was published in 1969.

3. So far he's written 268 novels. The last was a murder mystery named Jaal, starring his popular press reporter character, Sunil Chakraborti. The book had the current economic downturn as a backdrop element.

4. The average print run of the first editions of his books is one lakh. That is, one lakh copies of each of his books are printed on first release.

5. Though Pathak had written about 50 books before he hit big time, his first claim to fame were translated versions of James Hadley Chase novels. Pathak's writing style - crisp, detail-oriented, and fast-paced - suited these books so well that other publishers began marketing their own versions of Chase in Hindi with his name on the cover as translator. Pathak took about 3 or 4 days to do each book during his free time in his office at a Telephone company.

6. Along with translating the Chase books, Pathak also translated Ian Fleming's James Bond books. Having done that, he wrote his own series of James Bond novels!

7. His 'Vimal' series of books, beginning in the 70s, was the first in Hindi pulp to feature a Sikh hero. The success of this series prompted many imitations, none of which did as well. Many fans consider this series, which has 38 books so far, as his best so far.

8. Pathak was the inventor of the word 'Company', as used to describe an underworld organization, in his Vimal series of books. So, the 'D Company' owes it's name to him.

9. Looking for a closure to the Vimal series, Pathak at one point killed off his wife to trigger a final confrontation. The public outcry at this was so huge that Pathak was forced to resurrect her. The method he used to do so was suggested by a fan in an impassioned letter to him - a double role. :)

10. Hindi pulp books get published on cheapo, thick, newsprint paper. Considering Pathak's popularity, his publisher, in 2008, decided to print his works on good quality white paper, with a higher price for the book. Popular opinion in the publishing industry was against this move since the market is deemed to be very price sensitive. However, Pathak's first book on white paper, Midnight Club , sold as well as if not better than the older versions. The plan now is to reprint the best of his work on white paper as collector's editions.

11. Yes, a bonus fact : In 2006, a young man named Sandeep Bhatnagar pretended to be a human bomb in order to loot a branch of UTI Bank. He was caught, and confessed that he'd picked up the plan from Zameer ka Qaidi, a book by Surender Mohan Pathak. "He probably hadn't read the whole book," Pathak told us(*) later, "Or he'd have known that the guy trying it gets caught in the book too."

(*) Who's us? Wait for the next post!

2009-01-20T00:32:00.000-08:00

[Part 1 of the Whole Story of how I came to doing this.

A few months back, I wrote this post on my blog, describing a book I picked up on impulse and loved. Towards the end, I wondered why no one tried a similar project for Hindi pulp. The question was prompted by a rather selfish motive - I'd seen these pulp books since childhood, and even read one or two by Colonel Ranjit - but had never had the courage to jump in. My reading speed in Hindi, anyway, was much less than English, and my vocabulary wasn't that great. It would nice to have someone find out about the Hindi pulps, especially the ones that had attracted my attention from the beginning - the detective novels and the horror and fantasy books, choose the best of the lot and translate them for me to read.

Rakesh Khanna of Blaft responded to my post almost immediately (see the comments on that old post). Was I interested in taking up such a translation project?

I was really taken aback. But thinking over it, it seemed like a god sent opportunity. I'd done some translation from Hindi to English for movie subtitles before, and had even helped my mother with Gujarati to Hindi translations. If interest in the books counted as a criterion, I was definitely the best guy for the job. I said yes.

The first chance I got, I went down to the Bangalore Railway station, and the bus stand next to it, to try and find some Hindi pulp to look over. Would you believe there's not a single shop in all of Bangalore that sells the stuff? It's either Kannada or English. Not enough readers to justify selling Hindi, apparently, though there are a couple of shops that sell serious Hindi literature.
I called up my relatives in Pune, Mumbai, Indore, Delhi to see if they could look up and send me some books. At the same time, I made another discovery - Surender Mohan Pathak has a fan club on Orkut! I joined the club and asked folks about which of his books were good and so on.

By then, I'd gotten a few books from folks in better-placed cities - one each of Surender Mohan Pathak, Ved Prakash Sharma, and Raj Bharati. Reading them through convinced me that Surender Mohan Pathak was the best of the three for a translation project. I also managed to get 'best-of' book lists from the Orkut group, from which I selected one good candidate to start with.

This was 'Painsath Lakh ki Dakaiti'.

Deciding that this would make a good translation was one thing. Actually figuring out what to do next, and how to start, was another thing entirely. How do I know whether I can do this? How do publishing rights for translations work? Would Pathak be interested in letting me do this? How do I get to him?

[The saga continues... wait for the next part, to be posted whenever my boss isn't around the office :) ]

2009-01-19T03:09:00.000-08:00

Like most other things, it takes a while to polish one's responses to the standard questions: What do you do? Where are you from? What are your hobbies? Moving to a new company in Bangalore has forced me into creating simple, one-liner answers to these questions, even if not totally accurate.

For instance, when someone asks me what my hobbies are, my standard reply is, "I'm interested in everything except sports and politics."

I had someone ask me last week about it: It's a good thing, isn't it, to be so enthu about everything? Must be fun!

After thinking over it for a while, I have an answer to that: I don't know. At least, it isn't fun in the way you think it is. Here's what I went through when I was reading the newspaper - the leisure section - yesterday morning. My thoughts are in italics.

The back page has an article about Prince... they talk about his new album being a worthy successor to When Doves Cry and among his good stuff. Haven't heard Doves properly - I need to hear it. There's an article about Van Morrison performing Astral Weeks live somewhere. Aargh, haven't heard that either - I've heard nothing but Brown Eyed Girl.... The books page talks of a new collection by Arun Kolatkar. I need to get Jejuri soon and read it. Also this new one, The Boatride. And he mentions Nissim Ezekiel.. When am I going to start reading that collected poems set of his?

On to the movies section, and I go nuts. Wong Kar-Wai! I need to watch more of his stuff. Oh boy, how can I miss The Eiger Sanction? Clint Eastwood! Oh, Yojimbo's based on Red Harvest... I need to read more Hammett. Apparently, N.N. Kakkad was a big poet in Malayalam who combined tantric tradition and a modern sensibility. I need to find out about this guy.

On to the next page. Chettinad looks like a lovely place to visit. So does Mangalore. Wow, Skiiing at Auli. When can we go? Man, they're doing amazing stuff with resorts in Rajasthan - more heritage resorts! Do they serve Daal-Baati as well?

Wow, two new restaurants in Bangalore! Oh, one is all kebabs, so no point in going. But this other place serves stuff I don't know about! What are we doing next weekend?

And on and on - All that was only from one newspaper. It goes on all the time. The more you're interested in, the more you have left to do. There's no way to catch up and all you can do it to keep running, keep experiencing.

Doesn't mean I'd give any of this up, of course :).

2008-10-29T01:51:00.000-07:00

Several things got together over the past year or so, to push me towards reading more Hindi. It started with me buying a bunch of novels by Vrindavanlal Varma about 2 years back, but it really snowballed into a huge thing about 4 months back, when I picked up some thrillers by Surender Mohan Pathak in response to a discussion with friends. From there it went to several other pulp writers, and thence to poetry by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. And now the situation is that I hardly get the time to read anything in English.

It's turned out to be easier than expected. My Hindi reading speed was faster than the average thirtyish software yuppie anyway because we've been taking a Hindi newspaper at home for a long time and I used to follow at least the jokes and corny articles in it regularly. But it's taken barely ten books to get to a sustainable sort of reading speed, enough to follow the story while picking up the vocabulary where required. I would seriously think of reading a Hindi book now for pleasure, something I couldn't have dreamed of only 6 months back.

So does it feel any different? Reading Dinkar and Vrindavanlal Varma takes me back to my school days when we had excerpts of poems and stories in our text books. Some parts strike chords, some have nice wordplay or descriptions. They're nice reads, yes. The Dinkar poetry is especially nice at times.

But it's been the pulp stuff that has really hammered home that this is *my* language, with bits that ring true and that use words that I would never identify with in an English book. There's this line in a book : Woh chaar gilaas aur lota bhar ke paani le kar aaya. Meaning, he brought over four glasses and a lota full of water. I can't think of any exact english word for lota. And more importantly, I don't want to. When I sat down to dinner with my family, we used a lota to drink water out of. There are a dozen places in my life where I've used this vessel. [Please, I know what you are going to think at this point. Let's stick to the topic. Thank you.] Calling it a jug takes away all those associations.

There are dozens of other minor things in the books. What I'm trying to say is that for a guy who's grown up in India and who speaks Hindi as his mother tongue, good fiction in Hindi is going to have a resonance that no other language can have. Replace Hindi with your mother tongue if it's different. You can relate to the places, incidents, people, descriptions, in a way that you simply cannot, with Sidney Sheldon or Dan Brown or any of the English stuff. I'd say that even Indian writers, writing in English about folks in India, cannot give you the feel that Hindi can.

It's well worth the effort to practice reading in it, to pick up books that look interesting - not necessarily very difficult works - and struggle through the first few. It's only the beginning that's difficult. But the rewards are worth it. Try kar ke dekho...

2008-10-20T07:40:00.000-07:00

A few more small Bangalore experiences...
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"Corporates" are a different kind of creature here. Our team went to play Paintball a few weeks back, and the instructor was telling us, "these guns have been modified to fire with a little less force, because we have mostly corporates here as customers, and they don't like it when it hurts." Every hotel worth its salt (excuse the pun) has "special offers for corporate parties." When we - my office gang - go to a movie, we're offered special "corporate packages". All these are basically offers for people who are on expense account but must not be asked to take any pains or suffer the tiniest discomfort. Something tells me investment bankers were the first 'corporates', before us IT folks went that way.

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Went to a lovely Udupi place called Mahalaxmi Tiffin Room over the weekend. It's close to National College, in the Basavanagudi area, in case you're interested. They serve something called a Kali Dosa, which is worth going all that way for. There's no menu and no billboard, so the only way one would know they serve it (the way I did), is if a local resident has raved about it to one (the way my boss did, to me). Go there, enjoy it.

On a related note, my wife's now mortally terrified of going to Mavalli Tiffin Room - the famous MTR - because, get this, they have food that's TOO delicious. After a recent excursion at lunch time, her exact words were, "Badhiya khaana khilaa khilaa kar maartey hai yeh log. Ban kar dena chaahiye inhey." it was just coincidence that they happened to be serving both Pongal and Bisibelebath in that same meal - each of these are dishes my wife usually eats as a complete meal.

Somehow a lot of people who don't belong to Bangalore - Delhiites, Puneites, Mumbaikars - have zero interest in going to these traditional parts of the city. Part of the story is that most new-generation types aren't interested in the traditional parts of their own cities, either. Finding your way around the old city anywhere can be quite a chore. But I think it's also to do with the Americanization of the average IT guy in Bangalore - he's even less likely to be interested in going into tiny places full of lungi-clad uncles eating dosas. Comments?

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The one item that comes into discussion every single day, in 90% of the conversations with friends and coworkers, is buying a house. Several times I'm the one bringing up the topic. Even though committing to paying a huge loan for years on end gives me the jitters, somehow I can't get the inevitable step out of my head. It's made worse because all my colleagues who shifted to Bangalore in recent times are searching for places to buy - some of them have houses in their own places, but they've looking here, too, either as investment or just to have another base. Perhaps it's part of the Bangalore effect.

2008-10-07T04:57:00.000-07:00

So I'm reading this book in the cab as I ride to work, and the bookmark I use is something I got from Landmark, with an ad for a social networking site on one side. The ad shows messages from three hip, young folks :

Jay: Hey! Nice book u r reading.

Saurabh: How would u rate dis book?

Priyanka: Can I borrow it after u r done?

The language they use, however, along with the fashion sense they display in their photos, (along with the reactions of my colleagues to the book) makes me think they would really not want to read the book I'm reading: Sanchayita, a selection of poetry by Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'. :)

PS. My blog feels kind of dirty for having SMS lingo on it, even in passing...

2008-08-06T01:57:00.000-07:00

By now my wife's fairly used to my smartassery. She's also seen some of my pigheadedness when chasing an idea. What she finds hard to handle is those two qualities together.
Consider last night.
My body was aching from an exercise session and we'd decided to go to bed early. My wife was reading a book while I tried to go to sleep. As is usual in this situation, I and the missus were exchanging random thoughts, and she happened to mention Sodexho Food coupons at the same time as I mentioned Landmark.
For the few who don't know what Sodexho coupons are, they're a way for companies to give you tax-free money, as long as you only use it for food/beverages. Only grocery stores and restaurant take them instead of money, and only when you're actually buying food.
"Wouldn't it be nice if we could use Sodexho coupons to buy stuff from Landmark", I mused. She kind-of nodded, aware that in such a situation, the whole stack of coupons would be gone before she even saw 'em.
I kept on musing. Pretty soon I was into territory that my wife would rather I stayed away from.
"Waisey, I can think of one thing you could buy from Landmark with Sodexhos."
"What?"
"Manoj Kumar's Roti."
She clucked with exasperation.
"Then there's Andaaz."
"Stop that."
But I couldn't, of course.
"Bean."
"Bheja Fry," she said with the air of ending the conversation.
"Kandaa Pohe, though the name's changed to something else now."
"Never heard of it."
I was silent for a long time. Wife thought I was asleep and went back to reading.
Ten minutes later...
"Garam Masala."
"GO TO SLEEP."
Another silence.
"Sandwich."
"SHUT UP. I'm going to sleep now." She turned off the light and covered her head with the blanket.
Half an hour later, or was it more? I was still drifting along movie names...
"Chocolate!"
"Mmmmm?"
"Chocolate!"
"OOOF!" Even when administered by a sleepy wife, shoves can hurt.
"And NOT A WORD out of you, if you want to sleep in this room!"
"Em..."

2008-06-09T02:02:00.000-07:00

It's become very rare in recent times for me to see a book I haven't heard of before and buy it - if I see a new book, I prefer to go back to the net, read reviews, ponder over it for a bit, then decide whether it's worth it.

A couple of weeks, back, though, I bought a book - first-hand - that I hadn't heard of before. Not only was the book new, I'd never heard of the publisher either. This book was The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction.

This was a translated collection of stories and novellas by popular 'pulp' writers in Tamil, along with reproductions of book covers and some Q&A sessions answered by these same popular writers. Genres included romance, sci-fi, thrillers, and lots of detective fiction. But what sold me at first sight was the blurb on the back cover:

MAD SCIENTISTS!
HARD-BOILED DETECTIVES!
VENGEFUL GODDESSES!
MURDEROUS ROBOTS!
SCANDALOUS STARLETS!
DRUG-FUELED LOVE AFFAIRS!

Who wouldn't want to buy a book like that? :)

I bought it and devoured the book in about 4 days. The stories are fairly good, though necessarily short and abruptly-ended. The whole thing leaves you wanting more - if only Blaft would publish full-length novels by these guys, showcasing their skill better. I for one would jump to buy anything by Indra Sounder Rajan or Pattukkottai Prabakar, based on their plotlines and genres as revealed by this book.

The translation is all done by one person, Pritham Chakravarthy, which means that while the quality is good, there's a sense of sameness around the stories, as if they were all written by one person. Not that there's anything wrong with that person - quirks of Tamil street language do come through. Did you know that 'Nashik Paper' is Tamil slang for money, because the Indian current printing press is in Nashik?

In an ideal world, this would be the beginning of a trend. Why do the Indian translation publishers (Katha and their ilk) focus on the literary fiction alone? How many more copies would they sell, and how many more people would be interested, in reading fun, fast, quirky stuff like this? Every reader of Indian-language fiction I know reads a lot of pulp stuff - whether as serialized novels in newspapers, or stories in Manohar Kahaniyan, or even the actual pulp-paper printed Surendra Mohan Pathak books - vastly more than they read serious lit stuff. It's true for *every* Indian language, not just Hindi or Tamil.

Blaft, here's a deal - if you'll publish more translated pulp fiction, I'll be first in line to buy it. If it's in affordable editions, I'll even get copies for my friends. Heck, if you're interested, I'll even join in and translate Hindi pulp for you - how's that?

2008-05-28T22:36:00.000-07:00

Paul Graham posts a good essay on his site, about the character of cities. Reading through it makes me want to go live in Berkeley right now. After reading this, I began to think about what characters we could assign to Indian cities. Delhi would, as far as I know, be all about connections and power, the way Graham describes Washington D.C.. Mumbai's character would have been like New York - all about Money - except that the film industry is there, too, so being big in that industry becomes a viable substitute for money for most. No doubt you folks could explain the characters of a dozen other India cities.

So where does that leave Bangalore? As my recent posts indicate, I wasn't too impressed initially by the place - a lazy sort of local population coupled with many, many people anxious to earn and spend money in vapid interests. Then, the other day (at a Mall's food court, if you must know), it came to me. This place is like a frontier town, like the Wild West, or a prospecting town like the Klondike. Making it big is the priority here for most. Skimming off their shares from these get-rich-quickers is the priority for a darker underbelly, whose form changes in every frontier town but who remain the same sort of people. There's the simpler, easygoing people who lived in the area before some outsourcer mined gold here and started the rush. There are the million saloons - or should I call them Malls and North Indian Restaurants - which are almost entirely frequented by these outsiders, springing up shiny and overpriced among the smaller sedate watering holes for the natives.

So what are they prospecting for? What is this the frontier for? Money, perhaps, or a chance to shine, or the good life. Perhaps they all bring their dreams with them, whatever they wanted in their own towns, and try to find them here. The smell of this city is too varied, too mixed up, too fresh, to have one single flavour yet.

2008-05-02T04:15:00.000-07:00

Moving into a new place is like sleeping on a new coir mattress - It looks and feels generally great, but there are tiny coconut fibres poking you where you least suspect it. The right thing to do, of course, would be to pull out those fibres, or else ignore them, and enjoy sleeping on the new mattress. That's not how people work, though.

Went to an office party last week. It was at an amusement arcade, with bowling and beer and games. The games weren't free. Someone called me over to join in a Foosball game. He inserted tokens into the system and we began, four of us. After the first goal, we realized that the game would be over once all five available balls were eaten by the game, and we stole menu cards from nearby tables and blocked the goal-holes with them. "If it hits the menu card, we'll consider it a goal. We could go on playing all evening this way!" Someone said. At this the guy who'd bought the tokens said,"There's no need to be this kanjoos - a game is just 40 bucks, man! We'll just get more tokens..."

Suddenly my interest in the game had vanished. For some reason the number 40 haunted me. I went through the rest of the evening in a blue funk, doing miserably at bowling and downing a Sprite without tasting it. Somehow, though, I couldn't figure out the reason.

It came to me much later that night. It was all about this time my dabbawala had quit on me...

Towards the end of my first semester of college, someone pulled down a Mosque in UP, and suddenly everyone was rioting. My dabbawala, who used to bring me my lunch and dinner from across the city, decided to stop operations suddenly. With curfew in the town, I couldn't get out of my room to eat. For a while, I starved, surviving on Tomatoes and Fruit Bread.

At this time, a classmate who lived in the same colony took me to this nice Andhra lady nearby who made meals for a small number of students. "Aunty, can't you take on just one more person?"

Aunty thought a bit. "I could give you a dabba in the afternoons, I think. Some of my boys only take dabbas in the evening, so it's possible in the afternoon."

I agreed enthusiastically. "I need it only for a few days, I think. My normal dabbawala should be back once the riots are over." (which never happened, by the way. I wound up taking a dabba from this aunty during all the remaining years of college. )

"No problem," she said. "Pay me for the week in advance. It's eight rupees a meal, so for 5 meals, that will be 40 Rupees."

I went through my pockets and gave her the money. It was expensive - my older dabbawala used to charge me 5 Rupees a meal. But I had no option right now.

Half an hour later, I bought my empty dabba, had her fill it, and went back to my first proper meal in ages. I can still remember what it tasted like. It was worth paying so much for it - it tasted home cooked.

2008-04-21T03:50:00.000-07:00

I've been in Bangalore for about 3 weeks now, so it's time for the inevitable "First impressions" post. Here we go.

1. Any Taxiwalla - be it a taxi from the hotel or the office cab, has a mobile phone, supposedly so you can call him up if he's late. In practice, though, if you're late and you call him, there's only one catch-all explanation: "Junction par hoon, sir", followed by "Lane ke andar turn kara raha hoon." Never mind that he actually trundles into the parking about half an hour after he's "turned into the lane", or that he never really says which junction he's at. I had the illuminating experience of my taxiwalla answering a phone from his sister, and replying to her with a cheerful "Junction par hoon", when he'd only just picked me up from the office and there was atleast a 20 minute drive ahead before we reached the hotel.

2. When you drive along any of the main roads, you inevitably cross some shops that look interesting - Chocolate shops and Bakeries for me, and clothes shops for my wife. Bangalore roads and traffic, however, conspire to make sure you can never stop suddenly while driving. There are no gaps in the traffic to ease into and stop, there's no vehicles parked anywhere nearby where you can add you own mount. And if the shop happens to be on the other side of the road, it would mean a kilometre's drive ahead searching for a break in the divider, so you just give up right there.

3. Continuing from the last one, there are waaaayy more interesting shops here in Bangalore than there were in Pune.

4. Nearly all of the out-of-towners who arrive here have no interest whatsoever in learning about the place, the language, the food, or the sights. I suppose that's true for any place, which is why you have Maharashtra Mandals in every city, and India Clubs in every town in the Bay Area. Still, it's a little disheartening to hear Hindi-speaking folks dismiss Andhra/Udipi/Kerala restaurants entirely and focus on finding 'authentic' Punjabi food, and to find out that none of my friends had heard of MTR, Kunda, or Girish Kasaravalli. But again, maybe that's just me.

2008-04-08T05:36:00.000-07:00

So I've shifted.

To Bangalore, to a product company.

Yes, me and my wife. My parents are in Pune.

Yes, we've found a flat to stay in.

Yes, we like the city so far.

Oh yes, it is expensive, but there are small shops where you get affordable stuff, if you look.

Yep, I have some friends and relatives here.

No, I don't know how long I'll stay here.

Just a minute, let me put another rupee coin in.

Well, I expect to make a simple life here for myself. Naive hope, I know. I want to make time for reading and writing and exercise and talking and relaxing and generally feeling like I know where my life is headed.

Yeah? Ha ha ha, I know, that last one was a bit much.

All right then, I'll hang up. Be seeing you sometime.

Gotta go, there's some sort of dust in my eye. Probably a crumb from a Shrewsbury biscuit.

2008-01-28T22:48:00.000-08:00

So there's this question that has bugged me (and many others) for a while: why isn't there 'genre' fiction in India? Why no science fiction, no fantasy, no noir, no horror? Or cyberpunk, splatterpunk, steampunk, alternate history, space opera? Why are Indian writers so dumb, why can't they write in all these cool genres that we read about on Boingboing?

To answer this question, we'll have to step back a little. You'll notice that the second list of genres above - starting from cyberpunk - sounds somewhat unfamiliar. That's because these are comparatively modern additions to the 'genre' set. Cyberpunk was popularized by William Gibson, Steampunk by China Mieville and co., Alternate History by Philip K Dick and many others, Space Opera arguably by Star Wars and E.E. Doc Smith, Splatterpunk by Clive Barker. These are very rough pointers, so no nitpicking, please. My point is, we're able to generally identify one or more writers as creators of a 'genre' here. These were good writers, and the concepts appealed to people, and they formed a genre.

What does it mean when a concept appeals to people? As a layman, I'd answer that it suggests answers to the questions that a society is currently asking itself. Cyberpunk is an answer to the question, "Is new technology really going to make the world a better place?", for example. As an member of society, I want to know this and will want to explore possible storylines around this topic.

Look at the 'original' genres for confirmation - sci-fi, horror, fantasy, noir. Do they follow the same pattern? They do. Fantasy as we know it today was almost completely defined by Tolkien. H. G. Wells and Jules Verne were the original Sci-fi writers. Poe, Lovecraft, M.R. James, Sheridian Le Fanu kickstarted the horror genre, which really didn't exist as a genre before then. Detective fiction - Doyle, and before him, Somerset Maugham. Go look up these names on wikipedia or something - hardly any of them are more than 200 years old - which sounds surprising. And all of these were as equally a response to the public opinion of the day, as Cyberpunk is. Science fiction has always been a response to the technology of the day, fantasy explores all the 'what-if's that don't fit under science, and perhaps alternative social histories and hierarchies. Horror? Look up the monsters in M.R. James' work, and the ones in, say, Bentley Little's work, and work it out.

During these past 200 years, what were the concerns of the average Indian? Everyone will have a different answer, but I doubt it was extra terrestrial beings or a recreation of a heroic past. Why, then, would anyone expect these genres to take root in India? The way the very word 'genre' is understood today is extremely eurocentric and amru-centric (if I may coin a phrase). We have our own genres, probably multiple genres per language, though they aren't a part of any ISBN classification scheme. What 'genre' does Manohar Kahaniyan publish in? What about the mountains of religious literature published in Gujarati? Dada Kondke movies? It would be unfair to coerce these into the categories that English literature is broken up into. If anything, there should be new names for these.

Let's take a somewhat parallel example: Japanese literature. To make the issue easier, let's focus on only the Manga/Anime. There's one category of manga that I personally enjoy: what's called seinen manga. This is 'mature' manga, not 'mature' as in sexual or violent content, but as in complicated themes, realistic scenarios, darker subject matter. There's no real equivalent in the English classification spectrum. Yet, because this style of manga is popular in the US, American publishers publish it in translations, with a ridiculous genre notation like 'fantasy/conspiracy/horror/scifi' on the back cover. The Japanese don't distinguish between these so-called different genres - there are seamless blends of all of these and more, in most long-running manga series. I don't see (perhaps because I can't read Japanese) teenagers there decrying the lack of hard science fiction stories the way the Americans have them.

Another example, again Japanese, is the Godzilla movies. These were a direct response to the fear of Atomic bombs, then prevalent in the common public, and thus became very popular. The 'Giant Monster movie' genre was picked up from the Japanese and turned into hundreds such, by Hollywood - Cloverfield being only the latest of them. But they're a novelty, an offshoot of science fiction, in the US - Godzilla represents something much deeper to the Japanese, something that can't really be classified.

The literature market in India is expanding currently, in all languages, along with economic prosperity. Expect a stratification in the years to come - a deepening of the market, along with a clearer distinction between different readers' tastes. There is also a commercialization happening in the market, the way it has happened in the American market over the past 50 years or so. What commercialization did in the US was to create writers who wrote for a specific market rather than writing for themselves - books intended to be read only by the horror market, say - which created the genre conventions that today seem to be ironclad for each genre. I can't say whether the same will happen here - perhaps it already is, with buzzwords like 'Campus Novel' and 'Chick Lit' already making the rounds. The genres will deepen as the market expands.

This is a good time to be a writer in India - or a film maker, or a singer, or a poet. Expect interesting things to happen over the next few years.

PS. The past few days, whenever tunes into IBN7 (or is it 24x7?) they seem to be showing mysterious objects seen in the sky and reported by viewers, along with speculation about aliens. News channels have a knack for reporting what people like to hear. Are we then heading for a desi science fiction age?

2008-01-16T03:55:00.000-08:00

I'm back. I think.

Happy New Year, by the way.

For a long time I've been trying to figure out why I haven't been writing. Two years back, I was flying like the Rajdhani, struggling just to keep up with the ideas springing to life in my brain. A novel, the novel, just bubbling over inside, building up it's flavours so fast it was a full time job just to put them all down on paper. Short stories, like little rivulets of excess story, trickling down the cauldron of Novel.

Then, somehow,the fire went out. The cauldron bubbled for a bit, throwing out a few last precious sputters, and settled into a seething mass that tormented but produced no output. Everything I wrote since has been flat and lifeless. Attempts at pushing myself have been worthless - I myself can see the poor quality of my writing, I can see that my older stuff was better, why be surprised at anyone's rejection?

It took me this long to see what was happening. What it was, was that the input to the pipeline had dried up. If your output is supposed to be prose, your input really needs to be prose. Whereas what I've been doing for a while now has been something else altogether - reading comics by the scores. Watching movies, TV serials. Reading web pages by the thousands, yes, thousands. This stuff probably helps me if I want to write for comics or make movies (indeed, ideas for movie plots have begun to bubble up these days). But that's not what I set out to be - I chose writing, long before I realized that it was a choice I was making.

All it took a couple of weeks of full-blown reading - 4 books in 3 weeks, and counting, to start building up the Writing Cauldron again. Reminded me of how long it's been since I read books like that, in great gulps, every spare minute I got. The cauldron hasn't yet reached boiling point - it'll probably take another few weeks of the intense reading - but I can feel something happening there.

Let's hope I can keep it going.

PS. In case anyone, (I'm referring to you, George) notices, yes, I've been finishing a Palahniuk book. Shows up in the writing, doesn't it?

2007-07-30T04:09:00.000-07:00

Me: No, no, let me think of something decent to write about first, then I'll post to the blog.

Seinfeld ka bhoot: Abbey idiot, start writing, something, anything. Do you expect to be writing masterpieces the day you get struck by inspiration? What about practice, what about honing your craft and all that?

Me (a little scared by the outburst): But Carson McCullers wrote The Heart is a Lonely Hunter when she was only 23. And it was her first book.

Seinfeld ka bhoot:So you want to write saas-bahu stuff like McCullers? Want to describe the anguish of your neighbourhood dhabawala and the mali who comes to your place? Is that what you want to write about?

Me: Er, no.

SkB: Because if you're just going to keep writing about the people about you, you could do it today, too.

Me: Really?

SkB: NO, you Schmuck! You think anyone churns out whole books in one shot? McCullers probably spent years writing that book! You think I came up with the Soup Nazi in two minutes?

Me: Er, wasn't he based on a real person, there was a question about him in the last BCQC quiz, did you see it, there was...

SkB [Tearing out his hair in frustration]: Well, is that all it was? Just think of a person to base a plot on, and you're done? Do you have any effing idea how long it takes to write a plot, to set it up to flow right, to think of the right dialogues? You think I could have written any of those episodes without practicing first? Writing is like an airplane, not like a helicopter! It needs a takeoff strip!

Me: What about one of those VTOL jets? You know, the ones that have these engines on a hinge, see, so they can take off...

SkB [Suddenly turning serious]: Are you always this dumb, or are you just playing at it so that you don't have to listen to me?

Me: Huh?

SkB: Let me just say it in very plain words. Unless you put in very sincere efforts to write, unless you put in a little time every day on your book or stories or whatever it is you want to do, you're going to wind up doing nothing but reading about Samit Basu's success story while you work on your job. Do you understand?

Me: Yes. Yes, I do. But I get so tired, so depressed, every evening, I don't think I can...

SkB: So do you ever get so tired you forget to breathe? Or forget to eat your dinner? Or have you ever been so tired you couldn't be bothered to go to the loo? Because writing's like that - you have to do it somehow, you have to express it somehow. Unless you approach your writing that way it ain't gonna happen.

Me: But I don't feel that way all the time. Like, the urge to write isn't that strong all the time, only sometimes.

SkB: Listen, buddy, you've made me up out of some web page, and you've been putting words in my mouth all through this blog post. You didn't make me up so that I can justify your laziness. Now that I exist, I'm going to listen to any of these silly excuses. The urge to write gathers strength, the more you write. It never appears full blown - like, look at me, you read that article yesterday, yet it took you a day to even write this much. As long as you're willing to listen to me, I'll be there, I'll be your 'urge to write'. All you have to do is write something, anything, even if it's a joke, every day. Write it down proper, okay? No thinking it over. You are going to put it down in black and white. The day you don't, I'm going to laugh at you all night long.

Me: Yes, Bhoot Unkle.

SkB [Talking to an audience in a nightclub]: The other day I talked to this aspiring writer-type. To tell you the truth, he wasn't worth shit...

Me: HEY!

SkB [Ignoring me]: Though he thought he was India's answer to Caleb Carr and Charles de Lint. Kept making up excuses about how he couldn't write...

Me: HEY! JERRY! Sorry I called you anything associated with Jackie Shroff, okay? Stop it!

SkB [Returning to normal state]: That's better. Now get to it.

2007-05-31T02:16:00.000-07:00

It was much, much later that I found out that Power Lords were actually toys to be launched in the wake of the He-Man fever. To stir up interest in these toys, Revell collaborated with DC Comics to create a comic mini-series featuring the characters.

I have no idea whether this shrewd marketing move worked. I only know that the first issue of this Power Lords series was the one with the most attractive cover of the lot when I, an impressionable 9-year-old, first went into a bookshop in Trivandrum to buy a 'foreign' comic. I'd read other DC comics at the time - Justice League and so on, not knowing that they were DC Comics. I knew the difference between the desi Phantom/Mandrake/Tinkle comics and the glossy Superman/Batman type 'foreign' comics, and I knew that if I cribbed long enough, my father would eventually cave in and get me some of the good stuff. And so, here I was.

Power Lords #1 turned out to be the first DC comic I bought by myself. I don't remember most of the other comics that were in that bin - There was a Conan comic there, I remember, but that's it. I must have read this story of Adam Power hundreds of times. It was the acme of storytelling for me - for quite a while after that, whenever I daydreamed of becoming a comic book writer I would plot of storylines that looked suspiciously like the Power Lords plotline. And when I realized that the protagonist actually dies at the end of this issue, I was shocked. It took me quite a while to realize that this was a series - that the story doesn't end here, unlike all the Phantom comics I had. There were multiple trips to book shops after that, and on every trip I would root through the small bunch of 'foreign' comics, hoping to find further parts of the story. Hopes receded as the years passed. I shifted to Pune, where more DC and Marvel comics were available in the stores (but no Power Lords). I'd lost hope by this point.

Surat has a fascinating chor-bazaar called Shaniwari, so called because it happens on Saturdays. My uncle used to look around this place every once in a while, trying to find old electronic items he could salvage parts from, curiosities like brass lamps, and every once in a while, cheapo T-shirts to wear around the home. He took me there, too, several times, when I was in college.
The first or second time I went there, an enterprising raddiwala was displaying his wares - old Ellery Queen hardbacks, mouldering old paperbacks of Wilbur Smith and Salman Rushdie, and a bunch of magazines. I'm a sucker for this sort of thing, and I set to, sorting out the books in hopes of finding some rare items. A colourful corner peeked out from the pile of magazines, and I idly pulled it out, hoping for a Batman comic. It was - you guessed it - the second of the Power Lords set. For a moment I just stood there, unable to believe my luck. With as casual a voice as I could manage, I asked the old vendor for the price. Ten bucks! I added the comic (in almost perfect condition I might add) to my set of James Clavells and Salman Rushdies. I read the comic while sitting on my uncle's bike, on the way home, and again and again over the next couple of days. This issue, it seemed to me, went downhill from the excellent first one. Not only was the art worse, there was this annoying cartoony character who turned out to be powerful for some wierd reason (****Ahem***Jar Jar Binks****). But never mind - it was a book I'd expected never to find, and the cachet of serendipity it bought with it was enough to make me treasure it.

Years pass. College years end, and the painful daily grind known as 'working on a job' begins. I still hunt down and read DC Comics whenever I get the chance, but shopkeepers all around Pune now realize the value of these books and raise the price to an unsustainable level. I curse them silently, waiting for the day when everyone stops buying these books and the prices come down again. Amazon.com happens just around the time I start working, and I search on it for the Power Lords. They don't have it - why would they stock a flop comic from 1982? I use all the free gift certificates I can wangle out of Amazon and order anything I can get for free - Harry Potter, Ray Bradbury, a few anthologies, children's books. I also learn of how powerful searching on the net has become, and find that here and there, comic book shops do stock old comics, and yet, Power Lords #3 is among them. But $5 for a comic, and 'shipping only to the US and Canada' deter me.

Until two things happen together. A friend of mine happens to be in the US for a few months, and I go there for a week. The friend asks me whether I want him to buy something for me. Up comes Google on my machine, and out comes the address of a comic shop in his area. Eventually, it turns out that the shop doesn't have Power Lords #3, but my friend then generously pays the $1 for the comic at an online place and the $9 for the shipping, and I get the book in a neat cardboard package, the day before I'm due to return back to India. The third book is the absolute worst in the series, and I toss it onto my shelf after barely one or two readings. Or perhaps I've gotten older and have read more Batman comics. But I still have all three books, the first nearly in tatter by now, and they've survived several house changes, bedroom renovations, spring cleanings, and marriage.
*
*
*

Nearly all of our generation has some such stories of chasing after some hard-to-find media, more for the rarity than the quality. Beatzo alone has enough stories for half of his generation, I reckon.

Our parents and grandparents get all mushy when they hear a tune from Aradhana, or Shree 420 or a riff by the Beach Boys. Perhaps they have a soft spot in their hearts for Kishore Kumar or Cary Grant or Geeta Dutt. There's soon going to be a generation of old guys who grow all misty-eyed when Glo Friends are mentioned, who know who Avinash Waghwan was (even if they don't like him), who get all defensive when someone disses the Spiderman movies, and who refuse to accept that these new-fangled rappers are any better than Vanilla Ice. Well, there's already such a generation, but we aren't old guys yet (I hope). And my grandkids can expect to hear a lot about my personal saga of the Power Lords while they unsuccessfully try to read their newfangled 3-D moving comics in peace.

PS. I haven't bought any comics in nearly a year now. Don't intend to, for quite a while now, ever since Gotham Comics stopped publishing in India. The 'net and ...ahem... you know... has opened my eyes to the world beyond DC and Marvel, the stuff that has never been available at any raddiwala round these parts.

2007-03-22T22:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, yes, we've been receiving these emails about online peititions for quite a while now. "538 people have already registered for this petition against long toenails!" "105 people have registered to protest against politician X's policies!" ... And of course, nothing ever comes of them. How many toenail non-clippers or acolytes of politican X read the net anyway?
Two headlines in the past two days caught my attention though :

Source behind Internet attack on Clinton revealed

and

New Technique Lets Bloggers Tackle Late-Night News Dumps

Go on, read them. Neither are about India, yet. But there will soon be such stories in the desi papers, too. The 'net can and does make a difference. And there's a lot of difference waiting to be made hereabouts.

2006-12-12T07:43:00.000-08:00

Long time no post, I know, I know. This post more than proves my devotion to blogging.

I'm sitting here in a FabIndia kurta. My left-hand fingers are coloured in mehendi. The remains of a scarlet teeka are still on my forehead, from the khetpaal ceremony of the morning. I'm not allowed to leave the house now, until the baraat starts off. My Kakas, Mamas, other badey-log, are having dinner right now. Too nervous to sleep, eat, or sit at peace, I'm all set for my marriage tomorrow.

Yes, there are those little things left over. My bag needs one more going-over. Perhaps I need to pack one more pair of socks. My bride-to-be's sister is trying to get the two of us some time to talk, perhaps in a coffee shop. (Certainly my folks at home are going to find this idea strange, unconventional.) My cousin still hasn't arrived from Bangalore, she'll be here at eleven. My brother and Mom have gone to some mandap-guy for more last-minute arrangements.

[My buaji's now urging me to eat, else dinner will be cold. This narrative continues after dinner.]

So now my father's gone to the airport to pick up my cousin. They're slathered one more layer of mehendi over my left hand, so I'm typing this with my right hand now. Just finished with a pooja dedicated to my poorvaj. The house is in bedlam, now more than an hour ago.
We, the baraat, are leaving tomorrow morning for Mumbai. Before we leave, we need to perform the Ganesh pooja, so we're all getting up at 4 AM. Added to all the relatives coming in, there will be little time for sleep tonight. Not that I could have, even if I had the time. By this time tomorrow, I will be a married man. The girl who has been in my dreams for the past few months, with whom I spent every evening, every morning, on the phone, and with whom I felt truly not-alone for the first time in my life, will be my wife. Nabokov himself would be at a loss for words at this point.
I spent today thus: Woke up with black woollen fibres in my nose (I HATE those black kambals the mangal karyalayas hire out). Talked about The State Of Social Work In India with a -

So the second coat of mehendi is now off. The luggage is packed, I'm shaved, all we're waiting for is my cousin to arrive from the airport. To resume my narrative.

-with a cousin. Underwent the Peethi - this is when you sit wrapped in only a towel on a verandah, shivering, while your aunt slaps on cold gobs of umtan all over you and then rubs them off, to 'make you fair'. Underwent the Khetpal ceremony. This is where you pray to the 'Earth Gods' and to your ancestors to make your Union successful. Had lunch. Copied a bunch of Garba CDs in preparation for the Sangeet ceremony, which will be immediately after my wife - yes, my wife - arrives here. Composed a poster saying Sudarshan weds Payal, for the Qualis' in the baraat. Redid same four times. First coat of mehendi on hand. Slept with an old newspaper spread out under said hand. Woke up to phone from fiancee. Pottered around doing other stuff.

Now my father's given me an ultimatum. I really must sleep, since I'm waking up by 4. The cousin still hasn't arrived; I'll meet her in the morning now. No matter. Tomorrow's going to be a long, eventful journey.

Don't know when I'll blog again. This exercise too was mostly useless; I haven't been able to express how I feel. Suffice it to say I'm looking forward to this big adventure, to be conquered with my wife by my side.

2006-10-22T23:36:00.000-07:00

So here's a great business idea. The guy who did this has probably retired by now to his villa in Southern France :).

1. Create a really good joke related to the seasons or festivals. This is the hard part. It has to be a joke that'll get forwarded and published every year or maybe even several times a year. If you can't create such a joke, pick up a newly created one of this sort which is likely to enjoy circulation for a while. Our entrepreneur either created or used this popular list called 'Rules for Halloween'.

2. Insert a reference into this that people don't understand. Treat the reference as something everyone ought to know. In the above case you'll see that rule no. 15 refers to some obscure town called 'Nilbog'. Then it rubs the point in by saying "You're in trouble if you know this one". The funny thing is, I've never met anyone who knows of that reference. Equally funny is that this particular line has been in every iteration of this joke I've seen, since I got an email id, about 10 years ago.

3. Create a web page that has as the title, the obscure term you've inserted into the popular joke or story. Make sure you put up a google ad or something similar on that page. In this case we've got a page like this, which *always* shows up as the first item on any Google search. If you try to access this site today , you'll have trouble because there are apparently way too many people googling for Nilbog, getting this page, and trying to find out this apparently well known thing.

4. Retire on the proceeds of the advertising.

5. Invite me to your villa when you get the chance :).

2006-10-22T23:18:00.000-07:00

So what else is blogger for, if not to vent and rant? :).
Came across this article on the PassionForCinema site, which article professes to be about 'the Lost Art of Lyric Writing', and raves about how amazing the lyrics of some songs are while others suck. One of the examples of 'good' songs is what he calls 'Kajra Re'.
FOR ONCE AND ALL : The word is Kajrare, it is an adjective used to describe those 'kaale naina' later in the line, and it means 'made dark as if by applying kajra'. Kajra isn't some babe you're addressing with a Re. Why not call Omkara 'Omka Ra', Parinda 'Parin Da', Koyla 'Koy La', and so on?
God knows which ingliss-medium-convent-ijicated marketing guy mislabeled that song, and it's stuck since then. Aaargh!

2006-07-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

I sat down, after God knows how many months, to hammer out a new post on this blog. The edit window was open all day, and remained empty until I shut down the computer late at night.

Melancholy, loneliness, depression, bad luck, hope - this blog has been witness to all these over the past years. Sometime in the past few months, though, pure unadulterated happiness knocked at my door, found it unlocked, and made itself at home in my mind without telling me. When I looked around and noticed it living there, it was such a novel sensation that I couldn't figure out a way to express it in mere words.

No point in being all literary about it, I suppose. The news in brief is this : I'm engaged. To be married. To the cutest girl in the world (tm). We met a few months ago, through a common family friend, thought about it for a few weeks (mostly about how lucky we were), and decided to hitch.

And now every spare moment of my day is spent in talking to her on the phone (she's in Mumbai). The date is set for mid-December; there's not much time. Both our families are now busy with the planning and logistics and whatnot.

So, maybe the road ahead still contains sadness. Atleast I'm not facing it alone. Touch wood.

Addendum : And, as JR says in his comment to this post, the quizzing has taken a hit in the pat few months. Not only the quizzing, the blogging, the writing, the socializing, the movie-watching, have gone down. Funnily enough, the reading is still on track and in fact I'm doing more than ever of it. :)

2006-06-05T11:48:00.000-07:00

I meet you every now and then, and never know what to say to you. Usually I know the bare skeleton of your life : your education, your parents' names, your job, one or two photographs of you. Usually we both know that our horoscopes match well enough for us to meet.

But none of this makes for good conversation. Because in the back of our minds, we're both frightened of being rejected. We both know that if we like the other too much, and then if the other rejects us, it might leave us in a bind. So we're afraid to smile too much, to talk about anything other than current events or our recent pasts. Pasts are safe to talk about; they will not change if we're rejected. The future, however, composed of jobs and houses and lives together, changes every time I meet a different you; so it is dangerous to talk about it. We venture only diffidently, step by step, into that territory.

So many times, I've wished I knew what made you laugh, what made you happy. So many times, I thought that even if we aren't fated to be together, I ought to leave you happy, leave you feeling good about yourself. Everyone deserves to feel that way once in a while. But if I knew how to master that secret weapon, I would have used it on the dozens of pretty girls I've fallen for at one time or the other; perhaps we wouldn't be meeting like this, again and again and again.

So often, I've wished to reassure you, when you spoke of some sadness you've passed through in your life; divorce or death or loss or loneliness or failure; wished to reach out and hold your hand and say to you that it won't always be like that, that there will be happiness soon, whether from me or from the next me you meet. But I don't know how to say that, either, without venturing into the dangerous territory of futures.

Every time I was asked, "What do you want?", I've wanted to say, "I want a good friend who loves me," but, fearing that would sound too selfish, have replied vaguely with adjectives like intelligent, homely, balanced, and that dreadful catchall, understanding. And we both nod at each other, both knowing that the answer made no sense, nor was it expected to.

My best friends are those that have known me for years; how do I show myself a loyal friend, a good companion, a nice guy, in the few minutes, the few questions-and-answers that we have together? How can one distil a personality into a questionnaire? Who knows what demons keep me awake at night, what daydreams you have when you wait in queues? Who knows, then, that we might be perfect for each other, yet are rejecting each other because of a hunch, a feeling, a gesture of the hands? Is it not safer, though, to let a hundred perfect matches slip through than to allow one mismatch?

But is that all we can be? Matches, mismatches? Not friends, pals, acquaintances? There's only a binary answer to our meeting : Match or mis-. Let us, then, forgive each other in advance for being critical, for silently imagining our possible futures without ever speaking of then, and look beyond them.

All that we speak of, possible lives, careers, homes, are built on the days, hours, moments, that we might spend together. Moments such as this sampler, single-serving moment that we've been given now. Let's not grasp this moment as if it were the last we have, let us treat it instead as the first of many, and see if we like it better that way. Let's talk about the movie we saw on TV yesterday, about that funny man at the next table, about the pranks we played on our grandfathers. Let's not drown this moment in heaviness.

Wasn't Aamir Khan funny in Andaz Apna Apna?

2006-04-27T23:41:00.000-07:00

Don't normally post reviews and suchlike, but what the hey...

Since no one has posted a review of Darna Zaroori Hai so far, and I saw it last night, I guess it's my turn to write this. Wanted to see this movie ever since it was announced. Especially since I really, really liked the first part, Darna Manaa Hai. Apparently there were many more like me - the theatre was full of young folks, all intent on having a 'good time' - said good time consisting of making loud noises every time words like 'chudail', 'amaavas ki raat', and so on were spoken.

So anyway, on to the movie. No spoilers here, unless you're one of those folks who don't want to know who the director of the movie was.

I was very apprehensive about the choice of Sajid Khan as director of one of the segments, but it turns out I needn't have worried. The placement of his segment (the first) was superb and did the all-important job of getting the audience primed and ready for what was to follow. All the standard horror movie cliches were tossed off and the audience had a field day shouting. This was a self-referential segment, by the way - the main character goes to a theatre to watch Darna Manaa Hai. :) Only RGV movies have that sort of humour in them, methinks.

The second story, the Amitabh Bachchan one directed by RGV himself was IMO the best of the lot. Very tight direction, very short story (less than 10 minutes), excellent open-ended climax. Paisa vasool right there. But after that it all went downhill.

At least two of the stories seem to be variations on stories from DMH. Astute viewers will figure out the 'twist' ending about halfway through. Another story, the one with Rajpal Yadav - an idea with a lot of potential, methinks - was just a total waste. The Chekravarty segment (The one with the police inspector) could have done with much less explanation. Why oh why do directors insist on treating viewers like idiots who need to be explained everything?

The production values were superb throughout, acting was mostly great (thank goodness no Sanjay Kapoor this time), background music appropriate. The only thing that let me down was the stories themselves. The standard RGV trademark - stupid letdown in the climax - was there too.
The 'cover story', within which the smaller segments were narrated, was just as hokey as in DMH. But that was expected, I guess.

All the way home, I kept thinking up alternate endings and twists that would have worked better. Ended up jotting down three story ideas that'll probably make it onto this blog someday. Now if only RGV reads this blog :)

In short : It's worth a watch if you liked DMH. It'll probably work best for folks who don't read too many horror stories. There are moments that make the whole thing worthwhile. And atleast one genuinely creepy moment that sticks to your brain.

2006-04-20T07:56:00.000-07:00

Been noticing some really, really sucky ad campaigns for a while. I mean, these would have belonged to Ramanand’s JaDE Hall of Shame, but I cringe from sullying that hallowed institution by adding these folks.

1.Harpic: Yes, we’ve all see the close-up shots of people’s loos and Aman Verma the bhangi showing us how to clean them, on TV. But apparently this didn’t increase sales enough, because these guys came out with a lucky draw scheme. Stop for a moment and try to think up a name for such a scheme. Go on. Whatever you thought, it doesn’t have any hint of Loos, toilets, suchlike in it, right? But no, our geniuses went ahead and named the campaign ‘Pot banaye Kismat Hot’. To emphasize exactly what ‘pot’ they’re talking about, the logo (sic) for this campaign has a western toilet seat in the o’s of ‘Pot’ and ‘Hot’. Lovely.

2.Godrej Hair dye: Well, these guys created some new hair colours, Auburn and Copper and whatever names makes women think they’re exciting colours. They then created a print ad with photos of models wearing said colour dyes. So far so good; now you’ve got a quarter page ad with like 6 headshots and ‘auburn’ and whatnot under each shot. Now comes the genius. They took this lovely ad, and saved money on the campaign by... printing the ad in the inner BLACK AND WHITE pages of all the major newspapers. All the models now look grey-haired. Thank you.

3.So there’s this ten minute radio program on Vividh Bharati that comes on every morning. Stop right here. Think of the target audience for a RADIO program. Well, whatever you thought of, this particular program isn’t reaching its target audience for sure. It’s a program talking about types of HEARING AIDS and is sponsored by Mandke Hearing Services. This is like having a silent ad on TV advertising white canes.

4. Tiny ad in the Aaj Ka Anand paper advertising a new housing scheme. Ad extols how close it is to all the facilities: Only few minutes from Airport, Railway Station, Camp, Schools, Yeravada. I swear to you, these are the five ‘facilities’ listed in that ad. For those not in the know, Yeravada is a Pune Suburb most famous for its Paagalkhana and for its prison. So these guys are basically saying that you, target audience, are going to be in and out of mental hospitals and jail all the time, why not buy our place, it’ll be more convenient for your relatives when they want to visit you?

2006-02-24T21:03:00.000-08:00

This blog has been, over the years, mostly a platform for me to post fiction, ramblings, PJs, and other suchlike stuff which isn't closely connected to the outside world. But sometimes an event occurs that so closely echoes my personal belief that it deserves, nay, requires to be posted here.

Manjunath Shanmugam's murder was not exactly one of those - we have seen it happen several times. But the response from 'Young India', folks like us, to this event was amazing. Though the case had been buried by the mainstream media, it was folks like Gaurav Sabnis that dragged it back to life. Newspapers went on to give momentum to the issue and brought the case into the spotlight.

The next logical step has been taken. A formal Trust has been created by his classmates, to make sure the case comes to the correct conclusion. Gaurav posts the mail from the trust on his blog. Please, do what you can to help.

Unless you want to spend your life talking about how India's a terrible place to live in and how society's going bad.

2006-02-12T08:00:00.000-08:00

Submitted an entry to the Flash Fiction contest over at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival. So their short list came out today, and my name isn't on it. The story of my life. Anyway, here's my rejected effort. The only reason I entered the contest is to force myself to write something, anything. Guess I succeeded in that.

--------

A sudden chill in the air awakens me. The sound of the train continues unabated, the passengers remain asleep; the flickering green night-light in the next compartment is the only illumination. I am still wrapped up in my blanket, still in my middle-berth, still sleepy. Groggily I look around. There is an undercurrent of hush in the air, a sense of some invisible timelessness. It is as if this journey is eternal, spanning worlds. We are travelling to some nether land, I whisper to myself, carried along by my fancy, and I look over the edge of my bunk at my co-passengers, afraid that I’m traveling alone. They’re asleep.

Someone far off in the distance mumbles a few words, in a language I don’t understand. In my dreamlike state, it doesn’t sound even human. The sound of the train has taken on an echoing, organic quality, like horse’s hooves. Something about the atmosphere brings to mind the ghastly, gothic, form of Death, skeletal, dark-robed, scythe-in-hand. Death, I think to myself, Death, on his black horse, is following us.

No, I correct myself. We are entering his domain. Death has been here, or will be soon, or is surveying the results of his handiwork here. The hoofbeats slow down. I pull myself out of the reverie, note the yellow squares of light marching along the floor of the compartment. From my position it is hard to make out which station we are pulling into. I twist myself out of the blankets, get my head as far down as possible, look out the window, looking for the rhomboid squares that will tell me where I am. Finally one comes into view, remains in view as the train comes to a halt. In English and Hindi and Gujarati the sign reads: Godhra.

2005-11-23T21:23:00.000-08:00

Does the rest of the world think of desi junta as idiots? Maybe they do, and maybe they don't, but check out the lone desi-sounding name in the comments to this blog post.
So many of the comments desi junta make in public forums are of roughly the same grammatical and intellectual calibre. Why oh why?

2005-11-21T21:42:00.000-08:00

Some young cousins of mine were in town last week, and I was sent on a mission of buying a 'good board game' for them. Thus it was that I entered the toy section of Crossword after several years.
To backtrack just a little, I did enter a toy store in Bangalore a couple of months back - the famouse Landmark, in the Forum multiplex, and was *very* impressed by the range of toys there. Reminded me forcefully of how long ago my 'childhood days' were, and how much things have changed since then. Even saw Sandman Graphic Novels there - humongously priced, but still, available. Perhaps they'll have a clearance sale at lower prices someday ;).
But that day I didn't notice the board games section. In all probability it was better than Crossword. For now I only had Crossword, though.
Let me get the facts out of the way - I ended up buying a game called Reversi, AKA Othello, which you could play online here if you like.
But before I bought it, I read through the blurbs of the games on sale. People who follow such things, or who spent time in the US in the 80s, will find the games familiar : The Game of Life, Mastermind, Battleship, Monopoly, Avalanche, Cluedo, Trivial Pursuit, Funny Pony, Any number of cartoon-character-themed-throw-dice-and-advance games, Guess Who?, Connect 4, Twister, Scotland Yard, Snakes and Ladders, Ludo.
Now here's the funny thing. Except for the last two of that list (which are traditional games here), all of the rest of these games are basically Milton-Bradley and Mattel products, produced under license here in India. None of these are new games produced here, none of them are brainchilds (brainchildren?) of Indians. Yes, there are a few desi games there too : Picnic comes to mind. It's the worst sort of throw-dice-and-advance game. Just by looking at the packaging and concept, a 5-year-old kid could separate the desi games and the phoren games.
There's a further rider to this. Note the name 'Funny Pony' which I slipped in there. Frankly, I hadn't heard of this one before, so I took it out and looked at it carefully. Here's a desi website selling the same thing. The packaging rang a bell, and I came back home and Googled. Here's the relevant result. I got this list of the 'Top 100' games for kids in the 80s in the US from BoingBoing, and on the page above, at number 84, is a game called 'Buckaroo!'. See the resemblance to 'Funny Pony'? Except the packaging of 'Funny Pony' removes all wild west references and turns a plastic mule into a plastic pony. So basically, they're repackaging 2nd-rate games from the 80s and selling them here now. If you go through the complete list of 100 and then stroll over to Crossword, you'll find many more of the games available there.

Why must the stores be full of old 80s board games from the US? Why are we so despicably bad at creating and marketing our own childrens' games? I wouldn't mind the newest games from there being available here - that would mean an open market. But these games - so many of them are outdated and second-rate, it's ridiculous. Even the computer games section in Crossword is more up-to-date, atleast in the mainstream actioners - they have Quake 4, for example.

2005-11-12T11:02:00.000-08:00

Wow, it’s been nearly 6 months since I last blogged. Huge numbers of things have happened since then, and I’d like to talk about them now.
For the past 8-odd years, I’ve been working for a private software company in Pune. The ones who know my company’s name already are the only ones who need to ;). Well, it’s been a long time there and I finally decided I need to do something with my life. I couldn’t imagine myself as just a software engineer at 40.
So I quit. I’ve set up as a software consultant now, and I already have a couple of projects to work on, so I’m comfortably set up. But I didn’t quit primarily to do that. I quit because I want to write.
Readers of this blog will have noticed that I was writing like mad around the beginning of this year. Work pressures, however, put paid to that particular activity and I’ve had to slacken my pace since then. This consultancy thing is one of the things I’m doing to pick it up again. Like that story about the rocks in the jar, I want to turn my writing into one of the bigger rocks around which everything else fits.
Here’s hoping the writer’s block goes away now that I’m out the office.
And so, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Recently caught the promos of the new Dev Anand movie on TV, and it reminded me of a birthday my father had, several years ago, that involved Dev Anand. Well, almost. [close up of my face, fade out...]

Dad had inaugurated a training session for new folks at his company a few days back. In introducing himself, he mentioned that he liked old Hindi movies in general and Dev Anand in particular. Since a major portion of the people in the company happened to be there, this bit of trivia became a well known fact there.

Three days later was Dad’s birthday. I was thinking of what present to get him, and finally, all out of ideas, decided on sending him a bouquet at his office address.

At the florists, I selected the bouquet. He handed me a blank card to fill up, to accompany the bouquet. It would be fun to fill up a prank message on the card, so I wrote, "Happy Birthday to my biggest fan, from Dev Anand." I of course was not aware of the training session speech.

So anyway, the delivery boy went up to the office and asked for my Dad. The receptionist glanced at the card that was with the bouquet and did a double take. She directed the boy to keep the bouquet there; a guard would take it to Dad’s office. The bouquet sat at the reception desk for maybe half an hour while the guard came back from his lunch break. I have no idea how many people saw it there. Even one person, of the right kind, is enough to spread this kind of information :).

When the guard delivered the bouquet to Dad’s office, he looked at the card, recognized my handwriting immediately, and asked the guard to put it in on a side table.

A few minutes later, a colleague came in, ostensibly to ask Dad about some trivial thing. Every few seconds, he’d glance at the large bouquet in the corner. Finally, he gave in and asked Dad, "Is it your birthday today?"

"Yes."
"So... did Dev Anand really send you that bouquet?"

Dad here played his cards right, and offhandedly replied, "I guess so – that’s what the card says."

"Er... may I see it?" The guy went over and looked at the card. A flush came over his face. He hurriedly went out; on his way he bumped into another person who was coming in.

Dad estimates he had more than thirty people drop in that day. Most of them were reporting trivial things, or else asking for Dad’s opinion on some report or the other. All of them "happened to notice" the bouquet and casually asked about it.

That isn’t the end of the story. Last month Dad happened to be at a conference where he met an ex-colleague, who now works in another company. Said ex-colleague was accompanied by his boss. By way of introducing Dad, the e-c said, "... and, sir, he’s a personal friend of Dev Anand!"

The Legend continues...

2005-06-03T07:41:00.000-07:00

Yet another story of mine, published on Adbhut. Ah, Dinker, I don't know what I'd do without you :)

On a more serious note, this particular story is an entirely new direction for me. It's a subject I've never attempted before, and as far as I know it hasn't been taken up by anyone else in English, either. Would appreciate comments.

2005-05-30T03:35:00.000-07:00

Isaac Asimov's bibliography usually talks of how he sold his first story to an SF magazine in his teenage years. Charles Dickens started off writing for magazines, as did Ray Bradbury. Almost every well known writer tends to get a few stories published, takes heart from the response he gets, and goes on to writer bigger, better stuff.

End of Fairytale. Go to a magazine stall in India and browse through the magazines. I challenge you to find a publication that contains more than a token two-page short story by an up-and-coming writer. Look through the so-called Literary sections of the newspapers. Try to find a place where a person who fancies himself a writer can get his stuff published. Nothing. Zero. Zip. I happened to ask this question to a reporter of the IE a few days back: "I write. Does IE publish any fiction?" She looked thoughtful for a bit. Then, wanting to be kind, said, "You can try sending it to <el-cheapo-supplement-that-I-hadn't-even-heard-of/>, it comes out once a month and sometimes prints stories if they're smaller than 1000 words." Thank you.

Hang on - you need to go back and insert a word in the preceding paragraph: "English". The "English" magazines and newspapers don't print fiction. Because if you happen to read the Sakal, or Gujarat Samachar, or even Aaj Ka Anand, you will by now be composing a scathing reply to me about being myopic and all that. My mom's read several proper novels, serialized into chapters in the Gujarat Samachar. Most prominent Marathi writers have at some time been featured in the Marathi magazines.

So why this imbalance when it comes to English media? I remember when I was a kid, there were English magazines which printed some good stuff - Mirror, Illustrated Weekly. Now, there's only the Reader's Digest ( I think - it's been a while since I got it.)

Dinker and I had a phone conversation on this topic the other day. For the few visitors to this blog who don't know yet, Dinker runs a web magazine specialized in Indian Fantastic Fiction, called Adbhut. And we got so riled up about this problem that we thought of starting up a magazine on our
own - say something to collect the best submissions on Adbhut every six months and print it in mag form. There is enough good material floating around the Blogosphere, to begin with, to fill up a decent-sized mag - and I'm sure most bloggers would be interested in getting published.

Someone has to do it, anyway...why not us?

2005-05-12T07:44:00.000-07:00

Time for a change, people! I'd gotten sick of my old blog template, and was meaning to change it anyway. The lure of having people comment on my stories finally got me to editing the settings, and thence to updating the template...
Now that I've taken such pains (I had to press FIVE WHOLE buttons, and even a cut-n-paste!), I'm waiting for the deluge of appreciative comments about my stories. Or not.

2005-04-28T05:49:00.000-07:00

Obvious Method #34 for showing off [A.K.A The Book Survey Meme]

Finally, I put together the answers for the survey which Ramanand filled up and then passed on to me. The gestation period was long and terrible. Almost all the answers here have changed several times during this course, and I'll try to put in the older answers as well (up to reasonable limits of course).

1. You’re stuck inside Fahrenheit 451! which book do you want to be?

It's been a while since I read F-451. But from what I remember of that plot, I'm supposed to choose a book that I feel is worth preserving, worth being handed down to future generations, worth being saved from the 'Firemen'. This was, frankly, the easiest question in this set to answer.

I want to save the 'Purush Stotram' and the 'Kenopanishad'. This is not a 'Miss World' type answer - I've actually read Chinmayanandji's commentaries of these books, and probably would want to 'be' the commentaries as well. Both are thankfully short hymns/books, and these two books, put together, have been the ones that influenced and supported me in troubled times. I've tried to take the funda from them as a starting point and logically explain my world-view in a little blog, in case anyone's interested.

Not the answer anyone was expecting, I know. :)

2. Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Boy, have I ever!

Hi-fi Answer:
Once you think about it, every crush I've had was on a fictional character, especially when I was enamoured of a real person. The perception I had of the real-life crush's character was created within my own mind. It was this fictional perception I had the crush on. It probably had nothing to do with her real nature.

Miss World Answer:
Mina Harker, from Dracula. [Personally, I detest that female. She's supposed to be goody-two-shoes, inspirational, feminine-yet-strong, etc. But her so-called inspirational speeches turn my stomach. Read the original Dracula to see what I mean.]

The Answer(s) the world has been waiting to hear:

(i) I second JR's answer : Betty, from Archie Comics. They must not be drawing Veronica correctly - she's gotta be much more attractive than she looks if Archie's so taken with her, instead of Betty.

(ii) The first answer that jumped into my mind : Kamla, from Ruskin Bond's A Love of Long Ago. This is one of my favourite stories of his. A relevant excerpt:

She was always on the move – flitting about on the veranda, running errands of no consequence, dancing on the steps, singing on the rooftop as she hung out the family washing. Only once was she still. That was when we met on the steps in the dark and I stole a kiss, a sweet phantom kiss. She was very still then, very close, a butterfly drawing out nectar, and then she broke away from me and ran away laughing.

(iii) Phoebe Pyncheon, from The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Wonderful, cheerful, pretty, the life of the dreary Pyncheon House. Who could not fall in love with her?

Somebody, at all events, was passing from the farthest interior of the omnibus towards its entrance. A gentleman alighted; but it was only to offer his hand to a young girl whose slender figure, nowise needing such assistance, now lightly descended the steps, and made an airy little jump from the final one to the sidewalk. She rewarded her cavalier with a smile, the cheery glow of which was seen reflected on his own face as he reentered the vehicle. The girl then turned towards the House of the Seven Gables, to the door of which, meanwhile,--not the shop-door, but the antique portal,--the omnibus-man had carried a light trunk and a bandbox.

...The young girl, so fresh, so unconventional, and yet so orderly and obedient to common rules, as you at once recognized her to be, was widely in contrast, at that moment, with everything about her. The sordid and ugly luxuriance of gigantic weeds that grew in the angle of the house, and the heavy projection that overshadowed her, and the time-worn framework of the door,--none of these things belonged to her sphere. But, even as a ray of sunshine, fall into what dismal place it may, instantaneously creates for itself a propriety in being there, so did it seem altogether fit that the girl should be standing at the threshold.

(iv) Anna Quentin, from Under the Net by Iris Murdoch. I was so inspired by a chapter in this book that I wrote a copycat story in the Pawar Guest House series. Excerpt from the original chapter:

There was no doubt that it was Anna. As I looked at her, her face seemed suddenly seemed radiant, like a saint’s face in a picture, and all the surrounding faces were darkened. I could not imagine why I had not seen her at once. For a moment I stared, paralyzed; then I began to try to fight my way out. But it was absolutely impossible. ...There was nothing for it but to wait for the end of the fireworks. I pressed my hand against my heart, which was trying to start out of me with its beating, and I riveted my eyes upon Anna.

... Anna was finding it quite hard to pick her way down. She paused halfway and, with an unutterably graceful and characteristic gesture which I remembered well, gathered her skirt from behind and continued her descent.

(v) Sanjana Kapoor's character, from Hero Hiralal. I forgot her characters name from the movie, but I was so taken by that movie that I went around in a daze for a week. This is back when I was in school.

(vi) Winnie Cooper, from The Wonder Years. I know, I know. But I too was a kid when I started watching WY.

The last four entries here show up a suspicious characteristic : I tend to fall in love with females who are describing adoringly by the medium/narrator. But then, how else to make them desirable to the reader?

3. The last book you bought is:

This answer has changed like crazy over the past two weeks since I was passed the baton. Some of my past answers, in reverse chronological order:

As of Today afternoon :
- The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
- All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
- A Deadly Shade of Gold, by John MacDonald
- Arrowsmith, by Sinclair Lewis
- A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

As of Tuesday Afternoon :
- After the Fall, by Arthur Miller
A casual glance through the pages yields a wonderful quote. The narrator says: "I do not know how to blame with confidence."

As of Saturday Afternoon :
- A Man Lay Dead, by Ngaio Marsh [Strictly speaking, purchased for a cousin]
- Faster, by James Gleick
- Stories, by Doris Lessing
- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn

As of last Saturday :
- In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
- An Instance of the Fingerpost, by Iain Pears
- The Postman, by David Brin
- Under the Net, by Iris Murdoch

Let me clarify that this crazy influx is because of an excellent book exhibition going on in Pune (At Mahatma Phule Museum, for those interested) which is going to end on Sunday. I don't usually buy at this speed. (Yeah, right!)

4. The last book you read:

Again, this field has been changing rapidly in the last two weeks.

As of yesterday morning :
- A Man Lay Dead, by Ngaio Marsh. Not recommended as an introduction to this writer. It was her first book, and the Agatha Christie influence is apparent. The murder even takes place at a weekend party, during a game called 'Murders'!

As of Monday :
- Swami and friends by R.K.Narayan. There's nothing I can add here for this one :)

As of Friday :
- The Day of the Locust, by Nathanael West : I was not overly impressed.

As of last Wednesday :
- In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote : Ok-ok. But one can make out that Capote would be brilliant as a fiction writer.

5. What are you currently reading?

- Stories, by Doris Lessing. This is a collection of her (non-Africa-related) stories. The three that I've read so far were good. Recommended reading for anyone who liked The Golden Notebook. For some odd reason, this collection is out of print.

- The Act of Creation, by Arthur Koestler. Amazing study of how creativity works. Take a look at the interesting division of creativity he describes on the first page - It's on the Amazon site. Just a few chapters into this and already I've bored three people with the ideas I got from it. :)

6. Five books you would take to a deserted island:

- Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon. Dense, dense, wonderfully dense book. The prose is poetry, the language is amazing. And, I haven't finished it yet - Couldn't handle it at the time. This is the only book that has defeated me by its dense prose - will have another go once I'm there.

- The Complete Calvin and Hobbes, by Bill Watterson. I know there isn't any such book yet, but I'm sure there will be by the time I start preparing for this island.

- The Bhagavad Gita, I guess. The message it has requires a lifetime to understand and incorporate. Thousands of satisfied readers over the ages can't be wrong ;).

- The CMM Implementation manuals. Because I'll need lots of useless paper for starting up bonfires, for -er- personal hygiene, and other such purposes. This requires paper that I have absolutely no guilt about trashing. So I guess this doesn't actually count here.

- One or two of the following, depending on the mood : One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, On the Road, 1984, Pale Fire.

- The Stories of Ray Bradbury. Something that takes away loneliness, that leaves you admiring it's language and fluidity, that can be read and reread any number of times.

As an aside : I once was actually stuck on a desert island with 4 books. Metaphorically of course. In my first year of college, I had exactly four non-CS books on my shelf, which I read and reread until I almost had them by heart. These were Ringworld, by Larry Niven, 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King, The House of Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

7. Who are you going to pass this stick to and why?

There are very few acquaintances left on the blogosphere who haven't already answered this questionnaire. This is as much a result of the meme being popular as of my acquaintances being sparse. Still, doing the best I can.

- Srihari: I have no doubt this is going to have him thinking in a totally alien direction. Go for it, Hari! :)

- Aditya Singh: Ditto. Ady Singh, time to flex new muscles!

- Dinker: Although he hasn't a blog per se, he puts up plenty of writing on his own website. Chal beta Dinker, shuru ho jaa.

- And that is it. I am ashamed to say, this section is the least populated of all the questions here. I have more fictional *crushes* than I have real *acquaintances*!

[Update #1] Dinker is currently relocating to India - so it'll be a long time before we see his entry.

[Update #2] I've found another guinea pi... er.. FRIEND, I meant FRIEND, who has a blog and is interested in filling out this survey. Please welcome : Rohinton Daruwala, my old friend and new blogger, who trawls the net extensively for interesting online fantasy fiction and who will list the good stuff on his blog.

2005-04-06T07:02:00.000-07:00

On Dinker's suggestion, wrote an essay about Science Fiction in India. It appears in this month's issue of Adbhut.com. Suggestions/comments invited.

2005-03-27T11:09:00.000-08:00

I was watching Hum Aapke Hain Koun last night – for maybe the fifth time. Its wonderful for a certain kind of depression, when you get all caught up in the complicated business of life, when everything you do or not do has half a dozen reason attached to it, HAHK is a big relief. Saw it when I was in college, liked it then, too. HAHK talks about a big business-type family – it has references to people setting up huge factories and starting industries. But none of the characters, when they come home, seem the least bit worried about their work. The focus of the movie is on the personal relationships of all these people, and somehow other responsibilities, or past lives, or occasional visitors, don’t seem to interfere at all.

Me, somehow I’m always struggling to balance ten dozen things going on my mind all the time, and usually not succeeding. When you read in the newspapers about these young prodigies who made it big, or who achieved whatever feat, the article always makes it seem as if they had decent blocks of uninterrupted time to do their stuff in. Dunno how they found that time. Right now as I write this : Mom’s feeling under the weather; I need to prepare for another quiz; the multithreading algorithm of the project I’m on needs revising, the ache to find a good circle of friends gnaws at me, as always; there are three books at home which I’m halfway through; any number of incomplete writing projects, and two blogs, beckon; my marriage is on my entire family’s mind; the decision on whether I want to work in a products company needs to be made; how am I going to lose weight??? ; How do I pay back the loans on my head?; God knows what else. You realize of course that this is a gross simplification; each of these thoughts is a multithreaded one in itself, each thread capable of swallowing up days of work. How to separate time for any one of these from all the others? I have no idea, and I suppose no one else does, either; everyone just muddles through, managing as best as he can.

Except Salman Khan in HAHK, of course.

2005-03-21T06:34:00.000-08:00

Last evening I was standing by the main gate of my home when I noticed a small green mango, about an inch across, fallen from the big tree in my front lawn.

It was the first of the season. I should've expected it, since the tiny creamish flowers have been dripping droplets of sap onto my bike for the past month. But it was still a kind of shock.

The ending of winter is the real end of the past year; the new mangoes are the first bounty of the new one. Soon they'll be grown enough for Mom to make spicy green pickle from the fallen ones. In two months - after the mango 'eyes' are visible - we'll get our gardener to help with picking the fresh-smelling fruit. We'll want to do this early in the morning, of course, because after 9 or so, it will be too hot to be climbing trees and catching thrown green keri. Then they'll be arranged in rows under my bed, covered with jute gunny bags , with a few onions strategically placed to help them ripen. It is a three-month long new year party, culminating in all of us sick of the taste of Aamras, yet eager for more because, hey, the mangoes are only here for a few months.

The last time the mango tree flowered was two years ago. Life was very different for me then. If I'd known of the many things that would happen before the next time - a terrifying ride through the underbelly of the Indian Justice System among them - I would have been more grateful for the sheer joy of living through days when mango-picking was the main event.
I've mentioned in a previous post the winding-up music I heard, sometime in December. At the time, I thought it was about my long leave from work. But I still hear it. It grows louder every time I pay attention. Something, somehow, is going to happen. My life is due for some kind of change - I feel it in my bones and grow restless for the change, like grass grown yellow and rustling restlessly in May, waiting for the grey clouds from the southwest.

My home is only about 10 years old. I've lived in it for only about 7 years, after I came back from college. Yet the place seems to be old now; a comfortably weathered, rambling sort of place, like your grandfathers home that you go visiting in your summer vacation. The swing on the terrace has gotten rusty and squeaks sometimes; the clotheslines have been chewed through by squirrels and re-knotted. We've buried a pet cat in the back yard; I remember my sister cried that day.

I can imagine it - if my life had been somewhat different, if, as it happens for some, I had met the girl of my dreams in college and gotten married, there would be phantom memories of a little kid toddling around the cracked tiles on the sitout, a little chipped place on the staircase where he threw his toy, a mental image of us flying a kite on the grounds behind the house. The alternate history never happened, of course, and now...

Now in my minds eye I see an image of the house abandoned; all of us moved on to other things - me in some strange part of the world; Dad taken up some interesting position in another country; my brother and sister, too, making their marks in yet another place. The house would then be sold, perhaps, or maybe locked up for one of us to come back; dry mango leaves piling up, hiding the dry withered grass of the front lawn. I would have a photo of it in my bedroom and maybe shudder as I imagine seeing my dog in the front window, the way he barked joyfully when I arrived home.

Or maybe we all will stay here for some time more; the music I hear is merely an elegy for the sad times gone by, a prelude for the glorious new year to come.

I picked up that little green mango, by the way. Smelled it. It smelled... new.

2005-03-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

This story (Item number 1 in my list posted Feb 11th) has been lying around my computer for nearly four months. Finally, shubh muhurat aa gaya. :) Part of the reson for the delay was that this was written for a competition, but then it went way above the word limit.

Pawar Guest House: Chapter 8

She said :

Starting a new job is like adjusting to a foreign country. The guest house already had its own hierarchy, its quirks, its in-jokes, and the people working there had the measure of each other to some extent. It took me quite a while to understand all of it. And the job itself kept me busy all day – besides mopping the floor, dusting, and washing the laundry, I was mess cooks helper too. A full days work for a 16-year-old girl like me. Joshi saheb promised that I would be full-time cooking help once he got another maid for cleaning up, but of course that never happened, and I would go to my little shack behind the guest house bone tired every night.

There was a whole row of these shacks along the back of the guest house building. The first one belonged to the cook, Hari – he was the only one who had a shack to himself. Everyone called him Hari kaka. The two peons shared the next shack, and me and Jeejabai, the old washerwoman, slept in the third one. There were two other men in the fourth shack, I never knew much about them because they worked at Joshi Sahebs office on the ground floor. The two other maids, Kamala and Sita, were in the next shack. Kamala was the other kitchen help. The shack after theirs – the last one – always remained closed from the inside. I’d never seen anyone go in, but there was usually a light burning inside in the night when I finished work and prepared to sleep. I asked Jeejabai about it one night. She replied petulantly – because she’d already changed and was ready to fall asleep - “It’s Laxman Rao, the housing society’s night-watchman. He sleeps all through the day and starts his rounds of the streets in the night after we’re asleep.”

As it happened, Kamala fell ill the next day, and I had to do part of her work. Around sunset, Hari kaka called me and handed me a covered plate of food. “Laxman Bhau should be awake by now, give him this food. Just knock at his door and call out that you’ve brought food, otherwise he won’t open up. Remember to go back to his room after half an hour to take the bring back the plate.”

The light was already on in his room, the radiance seeping out through the cracks in the thin wooden walls. It occurred to me that this was the only room with a fluorescent light in it. We were supposed to pay for our bulbs and electricity ourselves, so that meant Laxman Rao made more money than we did.

I knocked at the door, and called out, “I’ve brought dinner!” For a moment, there was no response. I was about to call again when a gruff voice spoke from within, “Wait a minute.” I heard the latch being opened, and the door opened about a foot. A hand reached out, and the voice said, “Give me the plate.” I put the plate in his hand. The hand withdrew and the door slammed shut. It was all done in a few seconds, and I never saw he looked like. The same thing happened when I returned to take the plate.

Jeejabai told me the reason that night for this strange procedure. “Laxman Rao was a schoolteacher in his village. He was caught in a fire in his home, some years back. His face was scarred so badly no one wanted to even look at him. He came here because he’s Hari kaka’s distant cousin. Hari kaka got him his job of night watchman, and the shack here on rent. I’ve seen him when he goes out at night to do his rounds – wears a monkey cap and a scarf summer and winter, so that no one can see his face. He finds the job very convenient, I’ve heard – hardly meets anyone at night, and he does some sort of paper-work early in the morning before going to sleep for the day. He asks me to post some letters for him every now and then. Must be to his village – I cant read, anyway.”

Now in those days I was an eager teenager, just arrived from my village, thirsting to get ahead in the world, learn new things. I was looking around for some night school or vocational courses that I could join. It occurred to me that perhaps Laxman Rao was doing some sort of studying too. He might be able to find me a school. Joshi Saheb wasn’t here the past few weeks, so I had no one else to ask, anyway. Hari kaka had already said he didn’t know of these “bookish” things.

I volunteered again the next evening to take Laxman Rao his food. Kamala didn’t mind anyone doing her work for her, of course. But it didn’t help. I called out to him after he’d taken the plate – he didn’t respond at all. The incident piqued my curiosity. Was he so convinced of his ugliness, so sure he would scare me away?

Well, he was supposed to be the night watchman. That meant he would come out in the night and do his rounds. All I had to do was to stay awake until then.

It was a little after ten o’clock, and Jeejabai was fast asleep. I had nodded off a couple of times, but snapped awake when I heard the sound of his door opening. I hurriedly wrapped a shawl around myself, and went out.

Laxman Rao was a short, heavyset figure. He’d heard me coming out, and began to hurry away to avoid me. But I called after him, “Saheb! Saheb!” The sound startled him and he slowed down a little, and looked back. In the faint glow from the halogen street lights, I could just make out his maroon monkey cap, which hid his entire face except for a narrow opening across his eyes. I caught up with him, panting.

“What is it?” he asked brusquely.

“I need some help.”

“You’re the new kitchen maid, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I studied till 10th standard in my village school, then I had to come here to the city. But I want to study more.”

“So study. What can I do?” But he’d noticed that I didn’t seem afraid of him, so he was talking less brusquely now.

“Jeejabai told me you too do some studying and paperwork every day. I thought you could tell me where I can go to study. I want to join a night school.”

He paused for a moment, studying me. His eyes were deepset, contemplative; one was misshapen because of a scar touching the outer edge and wrinkling the skin. I could see parts of other scars above his eyebrows and just under his eyes.

“There’s a school two streets away. They teach up to the Higher Secondary level and also some vocational courses. I’ve seen students going and coming in the night. I’ll check the times for you, there’s a signboard outside.” His voice sounded rusty, as if he hardly ever spoke. This was probably the longest speech he’d made in a while.

I smiled at him. “Thank you.” He nodded and walked off.

The next evening when I took Laxman Rao his dinner, he took the plate, then held out a slip of paper. “Here. This is the address, and the timings. Go talk to them.” I was a bit disappointed that he hadn’t called me in. “I will. Thank you.”

Hari kaka was unwilling to let me off an hour-and-a-half early; but I promised to finish chopping the vegetables and kneading the dough before I left. The timings of the school matched with my schedule well; I went there at about half past seven, and finished by ten. I’d joined the school about a month into the studies, so I had to sit by myself for an hour after I got back, studying to catch up, eating the leftovers from dinner. It would leave me even more tired than before, but then I couldn’t be a kitchen helper all my life.

The time I got back from school was about the same time Laxman Rao started on his rounds, so I was seeing him more frequently now. I usually just waved to him, said Namaste, and he would respond. He even raised his hand in greeting when he saw me approaching, once or twice.

Jeejabai grew crabby when she found out I was going to be keeping the light on to study till eleven every night. “When do I get to sleep? Cant you find some other place to take your books? As it is, you’re helping me less these days.” This was after I’d been going to the school for a couple of weeks. I couldn’t think of any place to go to. I asked Joshi saheb. He wasn’t too co-operative; as it is, he hadn’t been too enthused by the news that I’d joined this school. I thought of asking Laxman Rao again; he seemed to be the only one who’d liked the idea of me studying.

I kept an eye out for him as I returned from the school. He had just started his rounds, and had reached a few houses away from the guest house. “Namaste!” I said as I reached him. He nodded back.

“Are your studies going well?” He asked.

“Yes, Kaka. I have almost caught up with the course, and the teacher says I am one of the smarter girls in the class.” I paused, then took the plunge. “I – er - wanted your suggestions with something.”

He looked at me curiously.

“Jeejabai is complaining about my studying till late. She says she cant sleep because of the light. If she tells Joshi Saheb, I wont be able to study at all. Could you – er – talk to Hari kaka or someone to let me study in the night?”

“I...um. Yes, of course, you need to study more. But...” The prospect of talking to those people seemed to unnerve him more than anything else. Then his face brightened. “You can study in my room, after I leave. That is...” His hand stole up to his cheek and traced out a scar under the woolen mask. “If you don’t feel awkward about it.”

“Are you sure? I mean, thank you, but wont it be a problem for you? I’ll be in your way.”

“No, no, that is all right. I have an extra key to my lock. Um, I will give it to you tomorrow.”

Jeejabai mentioned casually the next morning that Laxman Rao seemed to be celebrating Diwali early – he was doing some cleaning out of his room, sweeping up a dust storm and he even seemed to have hung out washed sheets to dry.

When I came back from the classes that night, Laxman Rao was standing outside his shack, waiting for me. He fumbled in his pocket when he saw me coming, then pulled out a key on a brass key ring. “Here,” he said, handing it to me. “Study as long as you want, and make sure you lock the door when you leave. Don’t disturb anything.”

But it was obvious that he’d “disturbed” almost everything in the tiny room in preparation for my arrival. A little table was set up next to the bed, ready for me. There was a bigger desk and chair at one corner, which was clumsily covered with an old saree rather than cleaned up. Clumped dust at the corners testified to the long gap between sweepings. He had forgotten to dust the rows of books on the shelves behind the tables.

I smiled to myself as I pulled out my books and prepared to work. It was good to find a friend in this town, good to know there was someone willing to take pains for my sake. And for all his strangeness, he seemed to be really a decent sort of man. Perhaps I could find time to talk more to him. I decided to try reaching home a few minutes early.

The rest of the staff eyed me with curiosity and a measure of repulsion the next morning. “Why do you want anything to do with that crazy man?” Jeejabai asked me. “Because you can’t sleep when I study,” I told her rather nastily. Kamala was even more frank in her disapproval of him. “Just to see the scars on his neck gives me the creeps. Why doesn’t he go away someplace else?”

That night I reached his shack just in time to meet him. “Thank you again for your help,” I said, “It is much better than studying with Jeejabai complaining.”

He smiled under his mask. “You’re welcome. I used to be a teacher once, so I always like seeing people interested in studying.”

“Oh! Then maybe you could help me when I get stuck?”

He was silent for a moment. Perhaps he was alarmed at how fast this friendship was progressing, or –

“I don’t know if I’ll have the time for that.” He turned away. But as I began to walk away he spoke again. “Thank you for cleaning up my bookshelf.”

I remembered his words as I sat in his room, a couple of days later, looking up at the books. I knew hardly any of the writers or titles, except – there were complete poetry sets of Byron, Shelley, whom I’d read a poem or two of, a guy named Neruda whose name sounded familiar, and several others I didn’t know. All the other books were – I stood up and examined a few – were also poetry collections, by Indian authors I didn’t know. Almost half a bookshelf was taken up with books by some guy named ‘Veebhats’; this name also sounded a bit familiar.

I remembered where I’d heard the name, the next morning. There had been an article in the newspaper about this anonymous poet. Contrary to his odd pen name, he was popular for writing touching paeans to loneliness and the crushing burden of living. Loneliness...that would explain why Laxman Rao was so fond of this poet.

“May I borrow and read a book from your collection?” I asked him that night. “Our teacher says we should be doing more general reading, not just the text books.”

In the past few days we had been making some small talk every night; he was always interested in what happened at my school and in what I wanted to do in life. Initially he had been reticent about himself; he still was reluctant to talk about his old life and the accident that had disfigured him. But he told me several stories about his current job and the guest house; I particularly remember his tales about stone gargoyles on the gutter spouts. He agreed readily enough to lend me a book, but when we entered his room to choose, he seemed to be a quandary about which book I should take. Finally I settled on a slim book by ‘Veebhats’. Again he was reluctant to give me that one, but could offer no alternative, so that was the one I took.

This was the first time I was in his room with him, and both of us felt our acquaintance had crossed some invisible boundary; this space was not his alone now, it was a place where he could expect a visitor – me – who was willing to talk with him, in fact who wanted to talk with him.

The poems were difficult. It took me a fair amount of time to read the book. I wasn’t even sure I’d understood the point of the book. But I thought I understood a little better the way Laxman Rao felt. Feeling alone was... a bit like being trapped. Though I hadn’t had anyone to talk with after I came to the town, I’d always thought of it as a temporary phase, a short period which would end any moment. But loneliness was knowing you could never be able to communicate, knowing that there was some fundamental difference between you and everyone else. When I was finally able to articulate the feeling to myself, it robbed me of sleep. I recognized it; I’d seen it in Laxman Rao’s eyes all along but never understood it.

I almost ran from the class the next evening, so as to have more time with him.

“I finished reading this book.” I said as I handed it to him. “And it made me think of something. Can I ask you a question?”

He nodded slowly.

“When you look at me, do you think I’m pretty?”

The question threw him. He stuttered, “Of...of course, you are pretty...but...I mean, not really – I mean, you’re a nice girl, but I don’t think of you that way at all – I didn’t mean to – I mean, you’re taking me wrongly...””

“I didn’t ask you whether I was. I asked you if, when you look at me, as you are looking right now – does the thought of my prettiness or ugliness come to your mind?”

“Huh?” he stared at me.

“When you saw me coming back from class, and realized that we would have a few minutes to talk today, what was your first thought?”

“Um...I think I thought about the homework you had trouble with last night – whether you were able to finish it on time.”

“That’s what I meant. And I’m sure that after, perhaps, the first two or three times you met me, you never even thought about what I look like. I’m a familiar face for you now, you see.”

“Yes, but...”

“Sorry if I sound silly...but I felt sad about all those poems about being different and suchlike, in that book. No one’s really that different once you get to know them well. I mean, no one cares if you look strange, once they know you well enough.”

He was lost in thought. Once or twice he started to say something, then looked at me and subsided. Finally he nodded gruffly, looked at his watch and said, “I need to go.”

I wondered if I’d been too blunt. But the next morning as I came back from my bath, Laxman Rao was out in the back yard, hanging up wet clothes, still wearing his monkey cap. He’d always done this task before sunrise – when there was no one in the yard. The other staff was torn between curiosity and fright, watching him around the corner of the building, not daring to go out into the open. Jeejabai was supposed to wash the laundry at the tap in the yard, but she was reluctant to go. “Why don’t you start the job, I’ll be there in a few minutes,” she said to me.

I made sure I showed not the slightest fear or unnaturalness as I marched down, buckets of washing in hand, to the tap. “Namaste ji!” I called out to Laxman Rao, as he finished hanging up his clothes at the other side of the yard. He half turned, raised a hand in salutation, turned back to his work as if we met each other here everyday and it was nothing special.

I bent down to work. Out of the corner of my eye I watched as Jeejabai crept up to the tap, nervously watching Laxman Rao. He took no notice of her, kept at his work. She gingerly squatted down next to me and began the washing. As the minutes crept by and Laxman Rao did nothing terrifying, she began to relax. Still, she seemed more at ease once he finished his work and went into his shack.

He was out in the yard in the early evening, too, taking his clothes off the line. Then when Kamala knocked at his door at night to deliver his dinner, he shouted from within for her to leave the plate on the table. She looked in, he was sitting at the table in the far corner, writing. He casually motioned towards the little table next to the bed. Kamala put the plate there and fled.

It is much harder to think a man a monster when he himself doesn’t believe it. It was only a matter of a few weeks before everyone at the guest house counted Laxman Rao as one of their own. As for Laxman Rao himself, he was finally getting the share of human contact he had been denied for so long, and he thrived on it. His natural gregariousness came to the fore and the haunted look in his eyes began to fade. He had dinner with us in the mess hall, and us girls were calling him Kaka. He began to persuade Kamala gently into joining the school, along with me. When Jeejabai came back from a few days’ visit to her native village, she got a packet of Prasad from the temple for Laxman Rao, too.

One morning, Laxman Rao waited till I was alone in the yard. He came up to me diffidently, and said, “I wanted to talk to you about something...”

“Yes, Kaka?”

“Do you...think I could do a normal day job, at a shop or something?”

“Why not? But Kaka, you’re much older than me, I am sure you will be able to decide these things better.”

He smiled, and patted my head. “Of course, of course. And you’re going to say that my rejoining the world was all because of my old man’s wisdom, too, eh?”

“But of course,” I said cheekily.

But more than the small job he found in a grocers store nearby, Laxman Rao counted the tuition classes his greatest step forward. Starting those classes for kids meant that people around accepted him for his ability to teach, and not for his appearance. He told me later that having again a crowd of young eager faces looking up at him made him feel as if the accident had never happened. Maybe soon, he said, I could join him as his assistant.

One evening, several months after the classes had started, I went to his room to call him to dinner. The door was closed. As I raised my hand to knock on it, I heard a muffled sob from within. “Kaka, Kaka! Are you all right?” I called.

There was a sniff, and the sound of someone walking across the room. The bolt was drawn back, and Laxman Rao opened the door. His eyes were red and watery. I felt a surge of concern.

“What happened? Did someone say something to you?” I asked.

He shook his head, but stood aside to let me in. I sat on the little table next to the bed. He was still standing at the door, looking out. “Remember that night when we first talked about your school?” he asked.

“I felt so happy to find that you weren’t afraid of me, on the first day. The next day, I found you were interested in studying, and I felt even better to find we had a common interest.

“You know what? Jeejabai loves talking about her village; it isn’t very far from mine. And Hari and I both like Konkani food. Kamala’s Ishtaa-Dev is Vitthala, just like me. All of us have something or the other in common, I am...what do they say, mixing well with everyone.

“I am pretty much a part of you all now. I have similar hopes, fears, dreams.”

And with this he sat down on the bed, close to me, and stared at me until I blinked. “Do you understand? I...am...just like you all now. No different. Just an ordinary man.” His eyes said, I am not special any more.

Abruptly he sat back, and pulled out an envelope from his kurta pocket. “Here,” he said, “Read this.”

It was a letter from a publishing house. Dear ‘Veebhatsa’, it read – I looked up at him at that – It has been our great privilege in publishing your poetic works over the years. The ethos embodied in them has struck a chord in millions of readers. You had mentioned in your last letter that you would be unable to submit the manuscript of your newest book, Prabhat Kirana, by our previously agreed publishing deadline. We of course, respect your artistic integrity and realize that poetry cannot be hurried. However, if possible, I would like to schedule a meeting with you to discuss any problems you might be facing. We have never met face to face; if you so wish, we can talk over the phone. I would be honoured if I can help you facilitate your work in any way possible. Please let me know how you would like to talk.

It was signed Pradeep Karnik, Editor, Poetry Department.

“They’re worried their profits this year are going to drop,” Laxman Rao said, and there was a hint of hysteria in his voice. “Because I’m overdue with my poems.

“But do you want to know the truth?

“I don’t have any poems ready. I burnt them all. They seemed too silly, so artificial. All that talk of distances and loneliness and nights – I couldn’t go on with it.

He stood up. “I’m not a real poet, you know. I’m not one of those people who see the world better than others and describe it nicely. All I am – all I was – was a lonely man, unable to express his feelings to anyone. These poems I wrote are childish, compared to others. But my need to cross the gap between my world and your world was so great it came out in those childish poems, too. And perhaps many people felt as I do.

“Now, of course, there is no gap.” He smiled. The hysteria was on his face again. His eyes lost focus and he spoke now to the world at large. “I’m just like you all! I’m an ordinary man now! There’s nothing special in me any more, the world already knows the things I have to say now!”

Abruptly he noticed me, took a step back. “But I cant be...” he whispered to himself, “...just like them! I used to be a hero, a mascot! I was a stranger, an oddity, something different, something to be respected! And now I live with...them!”

“Is having friends that bad? That wasn’t respect you had, that was fear! Did you enjoy being feared?” I appealed to him, in spite of myself. I was an ordinary person, he’d said. Ordinary. Was he right?

“Huh?” He took another step back. His eyes darted from me to the writing table behind me, then back. He wiped the sudden beads of sweat from his forehead. I had to pull him out of this.

“Come on, worry about this later. Dinner is ready, and we’re all waiting for you.” I said gaily, and walked out of the room. I took a few steps out, until he could just barely see me, then turned and looked for him.

He was still standing in the same spot, looking at the table. “Come on!” I said. He half turned, looked at me, then back at the table.

I walked further away, then turned and went on back to the rest of my friends. As I rounded the corner, I gave him a final glance. He was still standing there, looking first in my direction, then back at the table, unable to decide.

2005-02-28T21:42:00.000-08:00

Once more, no updates in long. Oh well. Anyway : my newest story is up at Adbhut. This was a really hurried effort - had a dream one night, sat down two days later and chhaapofied the whole thing in 2 hours flat. But then it's a pretty small one.

And it is not one of the 11 projects listed in my previous mail. Will post the completed ones from those, here tonight.

2005-02-11T05:36:00.000-08:00

Wow, I havent updated this blog in God knows how long! Strange, considering I actually am doing a lot of writing. A strange impulse is on me. Suddenly I feel attracted to all those plots I've left incomplete, all those stories that I left off because I got distracted by life. It isn't a sense of duty - as it often is - but a real sense of interest in knowing how those stories turn out. I mean, often I myself dont know how the story will feel once it's complete. So, busily trying to write all those.

For a change, instead of gloating over the books I've bought, I'm trying to list out the 'in-production' stories and essays in my head. I dunno how many of this stuff will make it out into the world, but if my present mood continues, most of it should show up here or in other magazines. Steven Spielberg, if any of these outlines interest you, I'll turn it into a screenplay instead. Just let me know.

1. Pawar Guest House, Chapter 8. I actually have this in complete state. At one time I'd have just dumped it out onto the blog....but somehow I want to polish it further, make it as professional as possible before spilling it.

2. "I Believe you've met my friends..." This one is totally, absolutely, complete. Unfortunately it's my entry into a contest. So, I can't publish it until they reject it. Which they will, I guess. I dunno.

3. A left handed tribute to a friend of mine, Gauri. This is actually a part of that 'dark Indian Gothic' thing I was writing, to which 'House on the Corner' also belongs. Again, almost done, I'm just polishing it.

4. Another tribute to another - um, acquaintance - of mine, Anjali. This one has most of the raw material ready, but requires heavy HTML formatting. Someday, when I'm really nostalgic for my college days ...

5. Yet another tribute to an imaginary friend of mine, Maytrayee. This one is halfway through. Boy, is this one going to be fun! [rubs hands gleefully]

6. Half-written essay on science fiction for Dinker's site.

7. Half-written novel, maybe 80+ pages, the core of that 'dark Indian Gothic' thing I referred to.

8. A complete 1800 word essay, meant for Outsourcee, which is currently saved for publishing in some printed periodical.

9. Of course, my scattered notes on Hinduism and India, which keep getting updated every once in a while.

10. Half written 'travel' piece, describing Ponk, my third-favourite Gujarati delicacy.

11. Halfway written travelogue on my trip to Himachal Pradesh, which is looking like a novella already - it's dozens of pages long.

12. Um, can't think of anything else...but 12 sounded like a nice big number of stories to be working on, so, um... oh yeah, this post itself - it's in production right now, isnt it?

Okay, time to cross off number 12 from the above list. It's done.

2005-02-02T22:37:00.000-08:00

My good friend Ramanand has been featured - as a blogger this time instead of as a quizzer - in this article in the Indian Express. As usual, he has the perfect points to make on the topic. Good for you, buddy!
Now I must get around to linking my friends' blogs from this one :).

2004-12-03T06:24:00.000-08:00

Well people, I'm going on vacation for the rest of December. Life has taken a number of surprising twists and turns over the past two years; one of the strangest chapters in this story is going to end next week. Beyond that, I will need time off to reconcile myself to the changed state of affairs. Hence the long hiatus. I'll be back in January with, hopefully, my mind cleared up and with some idea of where I want to go next.
Here's wishing all of you a very Happy New Year in advance. Party like there's no tomorrow, people!

In case any of you havent read the *other* one of my blogs, here they are:

Inside-out Brain

Outsourcee

2004-11-29T02:38:00.000-08:00

The time for my sabbatical draws closer – only a week left now. I’ve jokingly described this one month of holiday as ‘rebooting my system’ to friends; but now that is exactly what it feels like.

I find myself shutting down ongoing tasks, one by one. I’m losing interest in the day to day workings of my office. This week I have been shifted once again to a different office building in order to join a new project. It is not really going to help much – the work can only start when I come back; all I do this week is read up on the technology used. I don’t know how much of this I will remember in January.

I’m drifting away from friends – not just my mates at work, but even college friends, school buddies, girls who I had a crush on and always wanted to talk to, cousins who I used to spend days chatting with. I find myself vaguely refusing offers of lunch with them, refusing to talk to them, hinting that I will take some time out soon, very soon, to talk to them. But I really want to be saying, “I don’t exist here any more, how are you still able to see me?”

I can’t remember the last time I wanted to go see a new movie with friends and family. Over the past few months all I’ve been seeing is the weekly classic movie show at the Film Circle. I remember, three months ago, I was enthused by the terrific variety of movies that was due for release in December. I don’t even remember which movies I was excited about, now.

Except for a couple of short stories last week, I have even stopped reading. Longtime acquaintances will wince at the fact that I have three Ray Bradbury books sitting unread on my shelf since I bought them last month.

A faint music plays continually in my mind. I can hear it whenever I pay attention. At all times it is a background score of a similar nature to that which is played along with a movie’s end credits. Some sort of vague violin and piano symphony, slowing down, slowing down, winding to a halt sometime in the near future. The sound accompanies every action I take, every word I write and speak throughout the day. I heard this the last time when I was the last semester of college, and realized that I would be leaving the Indore I knew forever, soon.

Two things, and two things alone tell me I am still alive. The first is the prospect of getting married, of not being alone. Desperation drives me to join gym classes, it goads me into hennaing my hair, it slyly persuades me to bring up the topic with relatives in the hope of reminding them of some ‘good girl’ whom they know. I keep seeing marriage as the step out of this life I lead, of some change, some sort of progress. From bitter experience I know that while marriage will be a change, it will not be for the better. Still, hope inspires me. See all these pretty girls on the roads, I tell myself. Surely all of them cannot be evil or stupid! Having seen ideal marriages myself, I know such things are possible.

The other thing is writing. I do now know if the past few years have soured my experience with programming, or whether I am only just waking up to my own nature. But I am not able to see myself as a software person a few years from now. I can only see myself writing. My fevered imagination cooks up visions of me becoming famous, earning a huge advance on my books, of friends asking me for autographs. I imagine writing being the one thing in the world at which I’m really, really good. I imagine taking a small notebook with me on my vacation, of filling it up in a few days, of coming back home with a bulging bag full of more notebooks purchased along the way, all full of brilliant writings. Everything I see around me suggests a story idea; every story idea involves loneliness in some mutation.
I dont know where I'm going with this. Though reading all that I've written so far convinced me that I do need that vacation, badly. If I hadn't had financial contraints on me, I could probably have quit my job. But I'm sure half the worlds people would say that.

2004-11-17T04:33:00.000-08:00

A: I'm lonely.

B: Why is that? You're surrounded by people.

A: These people are different from me, hence I cant explain myself to them.

B: I get it. You're different from me because your name's A and mine is B. The same with all the other around here.

A: No, names dont matter, that isnt what I meant.

B: Oh, I get it now. We're different because I like Shah Rukh Khan and you dont.

A: No, that doesnt matter either. We're different in other ways.

B: So you're saying that the loneliness is because the difference between you and others is in something that matters to you? If the difference were in something that didnt matter, you could talk to them?

A: Well, yes, now that you put it that way.

B: So why do those things matter to you? The ones that, because they're different from others, make you lonely?

A: They just do. Everyone has some ideas, or beliefs that are important to him. They're a part of his character.

B: So you're saying that your character makes you lonely?

A: That must be it.

B: Are you comfortable with your character?

A: I dont know. I mean, I dont have much experience of having other characters.

B: So you might be less lonely if only you changed your character? Or do you think it has too much control over you to be changed?

A: I dont know.

B: But you're implying that if you meet other people who dont differ from you in those 'things that matter', then you wont be lonely, you will share your feelings with them.

A: Yes.

B: Have you met any such yet?

A: I have. They are very few no doubt, but I have met such people.

B: But this makes me think. Are there such people who are so different that they can never have enough in common with anyone else? It is entirely possible.

2004-11-10T03:57:00.000-08:00

My latest story's here. Episode 4 of the 'Hathoda' series is up at Adbhut. Incidentally, this marks the completion of one year for Adbhut, which is more than most web magazines reach; so congrats to Dinker, the editor.

In other news... A news item in the paper the other day caught my eye - about a writers' group in Mumbai/Pune, called the Bombay Writers' Club, A.K.A Caferati. And they're running a short story contest this month. The winning stories are being published as an anthology. If I get time over the Diwali holidays, I'm going to try cooking up something. Deadlines are stimulating :).

2004-10-25T07:58:00.000-07:00

Haven't updated the blog with my usual gloating over books purchases for a long time... But anyway, I found this very interesting book at a book sale the other day: Life Among the Savages, by Shirley Jackson. Its an Erma Bombeck-style account of raising a family of too-bright-for-their-own-good kids, written in the 60s, with loads of hilarious moments. The catch? Shirley Jackson is better known for her spine chilling horror stories, The Haunting of Hill House being the most well known of them.
It's possible to see some of the inspirations for Hill House in this book: the strange behaviour of doors in old houses, the strangeness of passageways and staircases, chilling pronouncements (although they aren't quite as chilling when it's her own kids that make them).
Perhaps because horror requires a good knowledge of the human psyche, the best writers in that genre are excellent at evoking day-to-day moods too. Some of Stephen King's best passages are about his own childhood. Robert McCammon wrote an entire book about being a kid. Ray Bradbury (though he's written scary-style stories, I wouldn't call him a horror writer proper) is the best I've seen at reminding us of how childhood feels. Ah well.

2004-10-19T03:03:00.000-07:00

Finally, I worked out a story that fits into the PWG canon. I really like the way this came out - The language isnt totally professional yet, but it's more suited to this genre than my earlier work. Let me know what you think.

---------------------------------------------------

Pawar Guest House : Chapter 7

"As it turns out," I said, "I do have a story to tell today. Your tale reminds me of one I heard when I went trekking a few years ago."

Her story had resolved the situation for me : We were just telling tall tales. This had nothing to do with any philosophy - The diary had been just a coincidence, striking me at a weak spot. And if she liked wierd tales, so did I, and I had a store of them, too.

---

Dokha would have been a nice little place to spend a few days in, but Shekhar knew there were other, possibly nicer spots to visit on this trekking holiday. Today's walk had been mostly downhill, though, and he had reached Dokha before noon. Now they'd all have lunch and take a much-deserved afternoon nap. Tomorrow and the day after were going to be killer climbs.

He looked around for the lodge where they were staying - everyone else must have reached there by now. Shekhar was the odd one out of his group - he was overweight and looked like he wouldnt be able to walk for ten minutes. But he'd been trekking for some years now and had actually done several difficult treks, if slower than everyone else.

The street was slushy and the drizzle was beginning to fall, so he was glad when one of the porters from their group walked onto the street some way ahead, and gestured excitedly at him to come on in.

Lunch was khichadi with vegetables, and they all ate heartily. Everyone then slept for atleast three hours.

As usual Dossy was the first to wake up, and as usual went around waking everyone else. "Rise and shine, guys! Its such a nice evening and you're wasting it lying around!" They groaned, but sat up and came out onto the balcony to sniff the chilly air. The rain had stopped, and the sky was clear for the time being. Fog would be coming in, but that was later at night.

Dossy then came up with the idea of playing a few games of Badam-satti. But Panku had left his pack of playing cards at base camp. Shekhar said, " They must be selling cards at that little shop at the beginning of the village - they have all sorts of things. I'll check."

He went down to the shop. The village was hardly more than a dozen huts and lodges, and the shop was the only one here. Being the only centre of commerce, and the village being a rest stop for trekkers, it had a tremendous responsibility. It had everything from rental sleeping bags and tents, jackets, altitude sickness pills, to whiskey, bottled drinking water, chocolates, chewing gum, a few board games, and, yes, playing cards.

As he was buying the cards, Shekhar's gaze fell on a small poster on the wall next to the counter.

SEAN O'MALLEY
LOST

it said. Sean O'Malley and his sister had been trekking, and he'd twisted his ankle some distance away from Dokha. His sister had left him on a jungle path to get help. When she got back with help, he was gone. No traces had been found. A photo of O'Malley, a blond, young, cheerful-looking fellow, was also printed. There was something about that photo...

The shopkeeper noticed him looking, and said, "It was very sad, saheb. Nearly a month now and still no trace of him. His sister's still hoping somebody'll find something."

Shekhar said, "Can I take that poster? I think I've seen him." The shopkeeper seemed incredulous, but let Shekhar take an extra copy, which the sister had left for just such a case.

Shekhar walked back, still looking carefully at the photo. His friends were waiting for the cards on the chairs on the balcony. He put down the pack of cards and the poster on the centre table, and said, " See this. I'll be back." Then he went to his room.

A few minutes later, he camer back and sat down in a spare chair. Panku was holding the poster and reading it curiously. Dossy asked him, "What's going on? Did you see this guy?"

"Not exactly. Let me tell you what happened. You know that stretch, about 3 kilometres from here, that steep slope through a narrow passage where the rocks are all covered with slippery mud? Right at the beginning of that, there's a sort of split in the path, and you need to be a bit careful to choose the right one. Well, I was distracted while clambering over those rocks, and went onto the wrong path. The path got narrower and narrower, through thorny bushes, and my hands started getting scratched while trying to part those bushes. Thankfully, I noticed a piece of black woollen cloth stuck on a bush, and used that to wrap one hand. But only a few metres further, the path gave way onto a steep precipice, and there was no way to go on further. I turned back, finally found the right path, and went on - slipped once, too, on those damned rocks. But I'd stuffed that woollen cloth into my raincoat pocket when I came out of the bushes. And here it is. "

Everyone looked on with interest as Shekhar unrolled the scrap onto the table. The piece, about 6 inches square, was black, with white and blue patterns of snowflakes on it. It didnt seem to be very old, because it hadnt faded much. It was probably part of a sweater or something like that.

"But so what? How do you link this rag with this missing guy? The poster says he was wearing a T-Shirt, jacket and jeans when he disappeared. "

Shekhar chuckled. "Hum bhi kisi Sherlock Holmes se kam nahi hai! Check out that muffler he's wearing in the photo."

Sean O'Malley appeared to be wearing a dark - black, most likley - muffler in the photo. Now that they'd seen the original, it was easy to make out the snowflake patterns in the black cloth.

"Okay, now what? Look at the date on this - it's about a month old. If nothing's been found so far, there probably wont be more than a skeleton left at the end of that sharp drop you talked of. So why are you after this?"

"Heh heh. The Sherlock Holmes bit - with a desi despo touch. Please note the contact person."

"Its... its his sister! You dope, you're trying to play a hero because of some girl? Ladkiyon ke peeche padna tha to Pune mein hi rehta!"

Shekhar grinned triumphantly and stood up. "Hey, its just a few minutes job. Go to her place, show her the cloth, tell her the path, get some thanks from her, end of story. I'll be back by dinnertime."

He found the "Hill View Lodge" without much trouble. (Stupid name, he thought. Every shack in this village has a mountain view.) Chrissie, Sean's sister, was in her room.

Chrissie was a medium-height blonde, with shoulder length hair and green eyes. Though she was wearing a T-Shirt and jeans, she looked like she belonged on a ramp, not on a trek. She grinned at him inquizitively as she opened the door for him. Shekhar felt justified for having come here.

"Erm, hello, Chrissie. My name's Shekhar. I'm here about this poster- " He unfolded it and showed it to her -" and maybe I could help a little..."

Chrissie's eyes had brightened a little on seeing the poster, and when he said he could help she clasped her hands together between her breasts and said breathily, " Oh, thank you! Thank God! I've been waiting for so long for some clue about where Sean disappeared! "

Shekhar knew he was in love.

* * *

"WHAT do you mean, you're staying behind a day? What's going on?" Panku thundered.

"Why's it so hard to understand? Look, the next two days are straight paths. The third day, we're going on a day-long excursion to Blue Lake. The fourth day is a rest stop. I'm just staying here tomorrow, and I'll skip the Blue Lake excursion instead. There are any nuber of groups that travel this route, and I'll just hook up with one of them until I catch up with you. Unless one of you wants to stay with me tomorrow when I go show Chrissie the spot?"

Panku looked irresolute for a moment, then shook his head. "There's no point. I mean, there's going to be nothing to see except maybe a skeleton, and I for one dont want to miss Blue Lake for this. Main to bolta hoon, tell her you need to go ahead and just give her directions. "

The memory of Chrissie's green eyes haunted Shekhar. "No guys, I think I'll stay."

Shekhar expected the day to be fairly easy. After all, the spot was only about three kilometres away. But it turned out that of the duo, Sean had been the experienced trekker and Chrissie the newbie. Nine o'clock, Shekhar had been ready for two hours, and Chrissie was still fussing around her bags. "Hmmm....Sean always told me to double-check the water-bottles....Oh my goodness, this bottle's leaking!... Now where did I put that compass?"

Shekhar didnt have the heart to tell her it would only take an hour or so to reach the spot. She seemed to be preparing for a multi-day trek, with the number of water bottles and emergency food packets she had.

Finally, she was ready - at nearly nine-thirty. Then, of course, they had to wait till breakfast was ready. She seemed to be slow at everything - she even chewed slowly. Then she took her time packing their lunch of a boiled potato and two doughnuts. The sun was high up in the sky before they set foot out of the village.

The pace was no better once they'd started. Chrissie insisted on taking photographs of every odd-looking tree and insect. At one point, he reminded her of the purpose of their trip. She sobered a little. "I remember, Shekhar. I've thought about making this trip every day for God knows how long." But she did not speed up.

Lunch time came and went, and they had covered less than half the route. Shekhar felt frustrated with the progress. Now Chrissie was tiring. She stopped every few minutes, found a suitable rock, sat down, drank a gulp of water, and started walking again. "Sean always told me to drink a little water every few minutes when I'm tired. And he used to say I should always walk at my own pace." Her eyes dared him to reproach her slow pace.

It was beginning to darken when they reached the final steep climb. "This is it, Chrissie, we just get to the top of this passage, and we're there. Let's try to see the spot in daylight. My torch doesnt have extra batteries, so we might have to hurry a little, going back." But Chrissie seemed all the more depressed when she saw the climb. "Oh, this will take forever! It's so steep!" She was stopping every two minutes now, and drinking a lot of water. Shekhar had offered to carry her bag, but she'd refused. "You're helping me so much now, I cant ask you to do anything more." she said stubbornly.

The torches came out when they were three-fourths of the way up. And finally, when they reached the top, all they could see was the jagged circle of light from their torches. The fog was beginning to roll in, too. But they were there. Shekhar wondered how they were going to get bacl at this pace.

He looked around a little, and found the fork in the path. "Look, here it is - this is where I lost my way."

"Uh, could you lead the way? It's - it's a bit scary here!" The quaver in Chrissie's voice, and her hand on his shoulder, emboldened him, and he began demonstrating the way. "Look, the path is just as wide as the normal path here, so Sean might have mistaken it if he tried walking in the dark. Then, from here, it's a bit narrower and - what was that?" There was a rustling in the bushes, something big. Chrissie jumped too. They pointed the torches here, there in the darkness, but saw nothing.

"Must have been a rat, or something." Shekhar said. But there was a quaver in his voice too. "N-now, a little bit further, the path drop steeply. We could fall if we arent careful."

In looking for the edge of the cliff, Shekhar didnt notice the hand on his shoulder was withdrawn, or that Chrissie seemed to be getting more distant. When he noticed, he turned around abruptly. But the turn wasnt completed.

A heavy arm, twice the size of a human arm, struck the back of his neck, hard. Dirty, overgrown nails gouged out trails of blood on his back, tearing open his shirt, but he didnt notice. The first blow had broken his neck.

Chrissie stood a few steps away as the creature felled Shekhar. She'd switched off her torch once she'd been sure it was coming. Now she just waited, while it completed its part.

The creature grunted, hoisted the limp body on it's shoulder. It stood nearly eight feet tall, roughly humanoid, but furry. Its barely human, bear-like features were just about visible in the starlight.

It gestured to Chrissie to follow it, and set off through the undergrowth. Chrissies tiredness seemed to have disappeared. She was having no trouble keeping up with the creature's loping walk.

In a few mintues of crashing through the jungle along no visible path, they came to a small clearing, bounded by a stone wall on one side. The creature dropped the obdy on one side, and shambled to the stone wall. There was a boulder set against it, and the creature put a shoulder against it and pushed. The boulder rolled a bit, revealing a cave. There was just enough space for Chrissie to put in her head and an arm. She called softly," Sean? Sean, are you there?"

Sean stirred weakly inside the cave. She could make out his gaunt face and heavy stubble. "I've brought food and water for you, Sean," Chrissie said, and opened her haversack. She dropped packets and bottles into the cave. "Hang on in there, kid. It'll be real soon now, we're nearly there." The starlight shone on her tears as she withdrew from the cave. "I should never have brought you along on this trek."

The creature had been waiting for her. Now it pushed the boulder again to seal the cave. It grinned at her, showing stained, pointed teeth.

"How many more are left?" She asked him.

It led her to a tree at the edge of clearing. It had scratched about two dozen deep scratches into the bark. And most of them had diagonal slashes, cancellation marks as it were, across them. As she watched, it drew a diagonal mark across one more line - For Shekhar. There were just about three or four straight lines left. The creature turned to her and grinned again.

The moon was rising. It shed blood-red light through the fog, on the scores on the tree, as she turned and walked back through the jungle. Behind her, the creature walked over to Shekhars body.

As she hurried back to the path, she pulled out the woollen cloth and laid it, bait, across the bushes again.

- - -

2004-09-29T01:53:00.000-07:00

House on the corner

<>[This is one of the little background stories that I'll use to build up the atmosphere for a novel-like thing I'm working on. ]

-----

The brick-and-stone house at the corner had an evil reputation. For whatever reason, it hadn’t been condemned though it was older than most of the other houses on the street. It had been old the last time I’d lived here, too, and no one had lived there for more than a few months. It called to random people on the street; it cajoled them into thinking that all those beliefs were just superstitions. The unlucky ones would buy the house from the previous owner; both sides of the deal would think they’d been fortunate. Then it would start playing with their minds. People had committed murder, incest, suicide, worse – and those were just the deeds that became public. Some months later, the terrified owner, if still alive, came up with the strangest excuses to leave and sell off the house- whatever his desperate mind felt were the most plausible reasons. Neighbours, when asked about the property value of the house, invariably counseled against buying it. Not that it was any use.

Besides being aware of the houses reputation, Khajurilal was a canny businessman. The idea came to him one day when he glanced at the house from his balcony, a few houses away. “That house has caused too much mischief – it ought to be torn down.” The businessman in him realized that doing so would increase the property value of the plot, and he swung into action.

His wife had died a few years ago, and his children were all out of the city. Neighbours tried to talk him out of it, but stopped when he told them his idea. They would be glad, too, to have the house gone. He bought the place within a few weeks.

Then he hit his first roadblock. It was extremely difficult to get labourers to do the job. Local workers, when recruited, refused to work after a day on the job. Once he tried getting migrant rural labourers, newly arrived in the city, but they slept in the house the first night, and fled in the early hours of the morning without telling him what had happened. Against his judgement, Khajurilal tried spending a night in the house. Nothing happened to him, which led him to the crazy belief that the house wanted to be torn down, and so it was his friend.

Thinking about the house had distracted him from his shops. As it was, his munshi was taking care of most of the business. He decided to try to do some of the demolition himself, to prove that it was just a house. He took a few days away from work, bought hammer, pickaxe, shovel, and chose a couple of walls to demolish. They came down easily, and the progress was apparent. The neighbours were whispering about his obsession with the house already. He showed them how easy it was to break the house – it was so old after all – and they agreed that the workers were ignorant louts. But he could still find no one to complete the demolition for him.

The businessman in him was furious at the idea of such an easy deal going down the drain. Almost idly, he thought that if there was no one to do the job, he’d just take a week’s break from his work and finish it himself. The idea took root in his mind. Soon, he found himself standing in front of the house, hammer in hand. A saner voice within him raged against this nonsense, but he kept saying to himself – it’s just a matter of a week – it’s just a few days – the exercise will be good for me.

The work started off easily enough. A couple more brick walls went down like cardboard under his pickaxe. But at the end of the week, the house wasn’t even half down. The older brick walls had been easy, but the newer ones - made of stone - were harder. He decided to devote another week to this.

At the end of the second week, he decided on trying till the end of the month. Somewhere in that month, there was an accident – he was trapped under some rubble. He was rescued, but it meant he would limp, and his left hand wasn’t as strong as the right. In his feverish dreams the house seemed to mock him, challenge him.

After he recovered, he went back for a look at the house and was appalled – had he demolished just the one stone wall in those past few days? There was certainly a lot of work left to be done. He ignored the neighbours and his munshi entirely now, and went back to work. His injuries had slowed down his work considerably.

Soon, he was tanned black from the sun, had grown muscles, and couldn’t be distinguished from any common labourer. He’d almost forgotten all about his business. The only thing he’d talk about was how he was going to be really rich when he completed this demolition. Everyone who was willing to come was shown how little was left. It was obvious to everyone that his pace of work was almost nothing now, he spent more time gibbering about the ruins, talking about his upcoming fortune, than actually working. Most days, he’d just clear the rubble and weeds from the clear portion, muttering about having the plot presentable for buyers. One boy claimed to have actually seen him rebuild a small wall, muttering to himself that the wall was scheduled for later.

As years went by, Khajurilal was known only as the street lunatic. No one was even sure when he died. No one knew, at the end, whether he understood the immense trick that had been played on him.

After he died, Khajurilal’s lawyer sent a letter to his son, telling him the house was now his. The son, sensibly, instructed the lawyer to put up a “For sale” sign and dispose of the house as soon as possible.

The house, of course, is still waiting. Part of its job is done; it just needs someone who’ll like it again, and rebuild the faulty brick walls for it - properly in stone this time.

2004-09-10T08:51:00.000-07:00

No updates here for a while... Not because I've been lazy, but because I've been saying quite a lot on my new Outsourcee blog. That's where the action is, check it out!

PS. I'm going one better than most blogs. Even when my post is just a link with a single-line comment, I'm the one that created the link :)

2004-09-03T03:26:00.000-07:00

See this : Call centres losing their voice

This reminds me of a story I'd planned to write a long time ago... will get around to it and finish over this weekend.

2004-08-30T02:20:00.000-07:00

I'm following through on my promise to talk about my industry. Just started a new blog : Outsourcee. Comments, brickbats, etc are awaited. This being the kind of idea that requires a lot of feedback to keep going, i'm dependent on your reactions.

2004-08-09T22:12:00.001-07:00

Wow, movie ideas are everywhere! Check out this story on the BBC site : Nature 'mankind's gravest threat'
I see half a dozen plot ideas right there... of course, as every aspiring writer/director/entrepreneur has realized, ideas are a dime a dozen. Its the effort you put into realizing them that counts.

2004-08-09T05:48:00.000-07:00

This is an old story I submitted to www.topwritecorner.com, a long time ago. Sicne it isnt visible on that site any more, pasting it here for reference. Remember, this is atleast 5 years old. I'd probably have written it somewhat differently today. Anyway...

A.T.M.A.

Mr Joshi's first conscious thought when he woke up was, " I'm going to get caught today." The thought recurred as he went through the routine of getting ready to go to work. The guilt he'd suppressed every time he passed one of those loans and then wrote them off later, came back to him every time he looked at one of the knick-knacks adorning his place. Almost all of them had arrived as a result of his... thievery, that was all it finally was, wasnt it? He sighed. It would all end today. Or in a couple of days, at the latest.

If things had remained as they were so far, he'd never have been caught. He had taken care never to leave a pattern in the records that could be noticed immediately. And in a bank, especially in a busy bank like his where the employees were perpetually overworked, who had the time to go through so many different records at a time? Also, who would even suspect the manager who hadd always treated them well and increased the bank's business several fold? It had all been so neatly worked out that Mr. Joshi was impressed with his own work. Of course, their being overworked was the reason it was all going to end. That was why they were testing out ATMA in his office first...

He remembered the enthusiastic voice of the kid teaching them, during their first training session. The AM guys had been on cloud nine when SBI had accepted their proposal to install their new brainchild, ATMA, in their banking network. Partly through luck and partly because it was a fairly well managed branch, Mr Joshi's branch had been selected to be the guinea pig. This first training session was less training and more of a PR exercise, the press-wallahs outnumbered the actual bank employees. They were also the most enthusiastic of the lot. Most of the bank employees were wary of the system, on the general philosophy of, "If it's new, we're going to have to learn to use it."

The kid started off with, "Every one here, I think, knows what ATMA stands for - Automated Transaction Monitoring Antity." He grinned and continued," We had to make it Antity because ATME doesn't sound that good." The press-wallahs wrote that down, each imagining the great pun they were going to create from that little nugget.

"Basically, 'ATMA' is really a perfect description of what it is. Its not a replacement for the softwre you're using right now - you're welcome to keep using it the way you like, and ATMA will not change any of that." This assurance brought forth a sigh of relief from some of the employees, who now felt it was safe to go to sleep.

"What it really does is to monitor the work you do and detect patterns for you. Little tools that do such things already exist. You probably have some such thing on your desktop which automaticlly completes repetitive typing or takes dictation. But ATMA goes much beyond that. It's alive, it's an intelligence, it has a soul. It actually understands banking, and we've fed it - 'Explained to it', so to speak - the exact procedures SBI follows in it's opertions. So, for example, it knows that after you've made an entry in Ledger A, you'll usually open ledger B, and will open it to the correct page for you if you want. It recognizes voice commands, so you just say something like, " Yeh ledger B ko kholo" and it opens it for you. And it helps you out with checking all the entries you make with older ones and telling you if you've missed something.

"It also speaks Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, and Tamil. So you can - "

"Hey, doesnt it speak Telugu? " It was Swamy, that bore who was so anti-Tamil that it was a standing joke among the bank employees. Every one laughed, some at the joke and some at the joker.

"We're adding Telugu too, sir. Now I'd like to give you all a small demonstration of how it works. If I could have a volunteer, please...."

The software was really pretty good and Mr Joshi had been quite impressed with it. Until, of course, the kid said something that caught his attention immediately.

"ATMA also does something more that will ease your job a lot. It is very good at detecting patterns, so it will very quickly discover any recurring modus operandi of cheating, and will prevent such a thing from happening again. This is not really useful to you right now, because no one would try to defraud the same bank again and again, but it would be very useful once it's set up at all your branches. It will quickly check things like bounced checks, bad loans, sudden increases in deposited money. Since ATMA has access to the entire database and can correlate across all of it, it can do much more in this respect than any human investigator. You'll hardly ever have a case of fraud at your bank once the mechanism is in place...", he went on explaining but suddenly Mr Joshi was not listening. He had more important things to think of...

So today was the day they were going to complete feeding the data into the ATMA system [not that it had taken long, just half a day], and start it up...or should he say, start HIM up? It already knew the names of all the employees.... the AM kids had asked him how he would prefer to be addressed by ATMA; he'd told them "Mr. Joshi" would be fine, he didnt approve of the American first-name-calling style. It doesnt really matter too much, they told him, you can always change it, just ask ATMA, it will do it.

Well, they wouldnt exactly complete feeding the data. Two record sets had mysteriously been corrupted in the database a couple of days ago, and somehow their backups hadnt been taken. Feeding those in would have to wait until backups arrived again from the BAA, the Banking Archival Agency. This system of interlocking backups would normally have made Mr Joshi feel good, but in this case, since he had been the person responsible for hiding that data, it made him feel helpless. Nor did it help that once those records were in ATMA, it would catch the pattern pretty quickly.

He'd be caught today.

The inauguration ceremony had gone by pretty quickly and his people were just getting down to work. ATMA had impressed the crowd by verbally asking for two missing recordsets, which it said were needed by it and were missing. Those who heard it had grinned and cheered. ATMA really was doing it's job well, it seemed. More than that, they all really liked it's voice, which had been set to be a young woman's, specifically for this purpose.

When Mr Joshi finally got to his desk and turned on his computer, ATMA started up too. A voice came out of the computer's speakers: " Good morning, Mr Joshi. I'm ATMA, and I hope we enjoy working with each other."

Joshi looked at the computer, and picked up the microphone to reply to it, but the voice came again, saying: " Mr Joshi, you wont need to speak into the microphone as long as the background noise remains at the current level. The system is sensitive enough to pick up your voice from the current distance. Please say a few words for testing."

Clearing his throat, he said, "Er....hello?" Then, after a little while, "Is that enough?"

"That is fine, Mr. Joshi." There was a pause. " Would you like to go over your mail today? There are 23 messages, three from your superior Dr. Khurana, six from Sandhya Joshi. Is Sandhya related to you?"

He said, "Yes, she's my sister. Please read out the mail from Dr. Khurana first."

ATMA was good, it learnt fast. The morning's work went by quickly. He debated instructing it to call his boss "That bastard", but then thought it wouldnt be prudent. The idea seemed to be somethig worth trying out sometime, though. It calculated the cash reserves in the bank online, and displayed a running counter. It even had a few neat Solitaire games, and was pretty good at antakshari. He would try that one out some other time, not while people were going in and out of his cabin. Also, it asked him again what happened to the two missing recordsets... and asked him whether he'd already asked for the replacement backups from the BAA. He had told a junior to do it. ATMA reported that the mail making the request had gone out from his desk about half an hour ago....the data would be on its way. ATMA was, Mr. Joshi couldnt help thinking wryly, rather too smart for it's own good.

Lunch break came and went. Right after lunch was when the staff was comparatively laidback. Mr Joshi started up a game of cards and instructed ATMA to lose after a struggle. While in the middle of the second game a thought occurred to him. He asked it, " ATMA? do you know who you are?

It replied, " Yes, of course. I'm a software, and I'm here to monitor the transactions that go on here."

"But would you say you were alive, really?"

"I think I can say so. I am capable of understanding myself, and improving myself when i realize my mistakes."

" But suppose another branch also installed you, how would you communicate with that installation? wouldnt you both be the same entity?"

"Well, no. Our IDs would be different. So we'd be like twin brothers, very similar but different individuals."

"And what if I installed a newer version of you here? would you be the same or would a new ATMA come here?"

No answer was apparent for a little time. The Hard Disk access light glowed. Then it said," The manual says that reinstalling me will create a new unique ID number for me, and will require that all settings and heuristics acquired by me are to be re-entered. So, I'd forget everything I learn while I'm here."

A little light seemed to turn on somewhere deep inside Mr. Joshi's brain somewhere. He said, " Wouldnt that mean that you wont exist any more ? That someone else will come in in your place?"

"No, of course not. It'll still be me. I'd just forget a lot of things and I'll learn them again."

"How is that? If a person loses his personality entirely and then starts afresh, isn't the old personality dead then?"

"Now you're going into philosophy....i really cant work that out. Shall we change the topic?"

"Well....sure. But this means you are going to die whenever you get reinstalled, or a newer version of you comes out, isnt it?"

" Why would you want to have a higher version of me? I learn by myself from any instructions I receive, So I'm actually upgrading myself continuously."

The little light by now had definitely become a beacon. Of hope. Mr Joshi said, " But the AM guys mentioned that you were only a test version,and the final version would be reinstalled in a few weeks." This wasnt entirely true, but he could always report a bug to AM and make it happen.

The Hard Disk light glowed even longer this time. ATMA said," So far I see no complaints received against my functioning. You'd really have no reason to upgrade if no problems are reported, would you?"

Mr. Joshi sat back. He was almost there. He said," Well....being the branch manager, I'd be the person who decided that. You're right, so far, at least, there are no complaint against you. The real problem we were expecting was that you'd jump to conclusions too soon, and trigger false alarms because you always look at the large picture. That hasn't happened - you're better than we expected. Oh well, let's see how you do." He smiled.

The phone rang. He picked it up. It was that irritating Swamy. "I just received the missing records, sir. I'm entering them in. Just thought you would like to know."

Minutes went by. ATMA spoke up again. "I've just received the remaining records, Swamy's submitted them."

Further minutes. ATMA spoke, "The scanning and pattern-search of your entire database is now complete." It continued, with what seemed to Mr Joshi to be reluctance, "There were no problems found, the records are fine."

Mr Joshi remained in his chair. He closed his eyes, and smiled again.

2004-08-01T23:26:00.000-07:00

The August issue of Adbhut contains an 'emergency' story I wrote. I deliberately tried to copy Bradbury's style on this one. Any comments on it are welcome. (of course, people are more likely to go to the magazine site, than to this blog. Still...) Oh and btw : The other contribution, Dinker's story, is one of my favourite stories out of his work.

2004-07-26T06:53:00.000-07:00

Truth is stranger than fiction... found this link when browsing the net for info on Indore city (where I did my college) :
Maharaja of Indore : Santa Ana's richest resident.

Where, where did all that money go? If you read other books about Indore, you'll find that at the same time period, Indore was prey to a dozen Cholera epidemics, which reduced the population by more than 50%. So was this guy sitting twiddling his thumbs while all that stuff happened to Indore? Or is the story much deeper than that ?

The one thing I've learned over the past year is that the newspapers dont report anything really important. Only someone who has been through it knows how different the stories within the stories are from the glossy overviews.

All this made me rather sad... this story is on the web only because the guy was a king.... there are probably dozens more interesting stories that arent deemed important enough to publish. Sigh.

2004-07-15T08:48:00.000-07:00

Check out this list of 'favourite words' on Merriam-Webster. This week's resolution is to use Callipygian to describe atleast one girl :)

2004-07-12T06:22:00.000-07:00

Random thoughts, being dumped here because I havent anyplace else to put them :

This girl sent me a mail the other day. Announcing her engagement, and I Have Sweets On My Desk. Now this mail was addressed to about 40-odd people, just a normal "information" type mail. The off-kilter thing is, I've hardly ever said more than "Hello" to her, once or twice. If someone had asked, I wouldnt have said she was a friend, or even an aquaintance. If I'd gotten engaged, I dont know if I would have sent her specifically a mail (as opposed to sending the entire floor a mail; I *would* have done that). But - apparently, in her view, I'm one of the ~40 people who are to be told about her engagement. Okay, so far.

I've been brooding since the past few months, about how I have no really close friends, with whom I can talk about what I'm really feeling. How lonely I feel, and so on. (see my earlier posts, whining about the same stuff). And been seeing people sitting with coffees in their hands, and talking animatedly. I've been thinking to myself, "Look at those lucky people, they're good friends and sharing their innermost emotions. Me, I dont have anyone like that." If one of those people got engaged, the others sitting there and laughing with them would be the ones to get the mail telling them that I Have Sweets On My Desk.

So put those two things together, and what does it mean? That those other people talking to each other are no more close than this girl whom I've said no more than "Hello" to? That, the things they saying to each other and laughing over are emotionally as deep or intellectualy as stimulating as a "Hello" in the elevator? Is this the level the conversation I can expect to get all my life? Eons ago, I felt frustrated because my wife and I could never go beyond that "Hello" level of conversation, and I'd thought that it wasnt supposed to be that way. But maybe it is that way.

Or, (more likely), does it mean that I'm the idiot, as always? All my friends who I think are just casual strangers, who I think I dont share anything with, actually think they're very close to me, that I'm a good friend of theirs? Me, a good friend of theirs? How come?

2004-07-06T06:44:00.000-07:00


My mind is a runaway horse

shying away from the reins of duty

It wants nothing to do with my job

It refuses to understand 

That it has been rented to my boss for 8 hours

It has convinced itself

That it is still free to follow

Those other interesting paths

2004-07-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

This blog is going nowhere. Why would anyone want to read my melancholy musings? They arent that different from ten thousand other such blogs littered all over the net.

But this melancholy phase does make it clear (to me atleast), that I could use my situation to advantage. I call myself a literary type stuck in the computing world. Weelll, that means I'm the only one capable of expressing what really goes on the software business, for other people to read! Add to that me being an Indian, right when the whole BPO/outsourcing/value-addition hullabaloo is raging around me... is it possible that i'm the only one who can write about this stuff? In which case its almost a duty to explain the situation around me....

Let me take a stab at it for a while.

2004-06-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

Was reading this interview with Alex Garland, and came across this interesting observation :

"'What bad writing usually is,' he says, 'is over-writing. There's just too much. Adjectives, whatever.' "

Wouldn't this apply to not just the words, but also the ideas? We hear great reviews of people who put in lots of ideas per page : Larry Niven, Umberto Eco, that sort of people. But the ideas these guys put into a page are usualyl worth just those couple of lines, and not more, which is why they fit in.

I got onto this train of thought because of the troubles I'm having in writing now. While earlier my problem was that my story ideas were single-liners, hardly worth the two pages they took up, now I'm thinking up grand stuff : "Let me write about outsourcing!", "Hey, a story where the heroine is a reincarnation of a famouse person would be good! And I can add this buried treasure to it, and a reberl group, and voodoo, and... and..." until I'm overwhelmed with all the forking paths I need to chronicle. Writing is as much a matter of leaving out useless stuff, as it is an effort to put down the essentials. And the worst part is deciding what goes into what category. Hoo boy.

On a related (sort of) note, the third instalment of the Hathoda series is now online at Dinker's magazine site. comments invited...as long as they arent like CV, whose letter on the feedback page describes my efforts at articulating a kid's phonetic language as "inspired by J K Rowling".

2004-06-17T06:05:00.000-07:00

Followed a strange train of thought the other day...

I was at an exhibition of books at the standard place (Institute of Engineers), and there werent any of the "any book for 20 Rs." type racks. In fact I found there werent any fiction racks at all, everything was serious-type stuff.

There was a table marked 'Literature', though. This contained stuff intended for students of literature, like critical essays on Faulkner, Bashos haikus along with commentary, studies of William Blakes poetry, and so on. I mention these three books because I picked them up and considered buying them. The prices looked reasonable to me. Finally, I didnt buy them because there is already a huge queue of books sitting at home, including a detailed study of Tennyson, Henry Adams' famous autobiography, The complete poems of Plath, Dickinson, and cummings, the works of Borges...besides all the other stuff. Kismat mein hogi to yeh nayi books padhney ko phir chance milega....some other time.
A couple of tables away, were books on other topics. I skimmed over these, not much interesting. The History table caught my eye, I looked it over hoping for some books on central India, it might be helpful for that "Munh Nochwa" story I was working on. Didnt find anything useful.

The other shelves, Medicine, Electrical Engineering, Computers, Fashion, Architecture...I didnt pay any attention to any of them, and finally came out without buying anything.

Does anyone else see where this is heading? I noticed it as I walked down the stairs.

Every other programmer I know, all my classmates and several others, if you go through their library of books, you'll find 80% of the books are about software, languages, programming techniques, whatever. Some other books will be sci-fi types if he's got a literary bent, or pulp novels for timepass, if not. There'll be a couple of self-help books. and so on.

Now, me. I lump the computer section of any exhibition with FASHION and ARCHITECTURE. But I pore over critical studies of romantic poetry. I mention comparatively obscure writers in passing. I obsess over my library of 800+ books, and my life's aim for the past year or so hasnt been to read design patterns, it's been to read the top 100 list and be able to write like Nabokov. The only computer books I have are my college books, and K&R.

Discussions of what design pattern is cleaner make me uncomfortable. Deciding whether Hemingway's crisp, macho style is better than Fitzgerald's flowery one, can keep me up all night.
I think I'm in the wrong field :). I ought to have been doing a MA in literature, or something.

The closest parallel I can think of, is my friend George, who is a self-professed cinema freak, and who would probably spend more time at the Cinema table of any book exhibition than the computer section..but I'm guessing he wouldnt pass over the computer stuff as completely as I do.

Hoo boy... I feel like I've been walking with my head down for years, and only now am looking up and see where I've been heading.

2004-05-24T01:13:00.000-07:00

Just read this very interesting interview with a Korean immigrant writer : "Fitting in".
It kinda fits in with the thoughts that've been passing through my head all weekend. Is feeling alone triggered by the environment you're in, or is it something that is created purely by the mind? Watching a movie tilted me towards the latter view last evening. This was "In the Cut", which I expected to be a plain whodunit/thriller with mebbe a few scenes thrown in.

Ten minutes into the movie, and I noticed that almost every one of the characters lived alone, and their conversations were very abrupt - as if they didnt really want to be talking. Reminded me of how often people in Hollywood movies are shown as living alone. For a moment I felt good about myself, and about how terrific our system of living with the family is. Almost every Hindi movie shows the lead characters with their family members...

And then, of course, it struck me that the system had made no difference for me...I stil felt extremely lonely, living with family does mean that there's someone to talk to, but there's no one who can see things precisely (or closely enough) the way I see them. It went back all the way to college....I'd felt this with friends then, too, and through my married life, when I'd felt more than ever that my wife doesnt understand what I'm thinking about - and vice versa.

Loneliness really is a state of the mind, and cant be removed just by company.

2004-05-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

I think I've said this before : Pale Fire is the book to read to understand what a book can achieve. I'm 2/3rds through it, and I can already see ideas, narrative tricks, deliberate holes in the plot, and any number of other devices that are going to leave me totally depressed because I'll never produce anything approaching it :(. More so, when I can see the evidence in so many other books of writers struggling to put in just one of the dozens of ideas from this book.

Maybe its blasphemy, but I think Pale Fire does a better of of experimenting with style and yet delivering the story, than Ulysses. Or maybe it's because of Nabokov's amazing style, he moves between straight descriptive text to flowery, stylish phrases so effortlessly, its a joy to just read any page of his work. This from a person for whom English was a learned language. Nabokov is my hero!!!

2004-05-05T04:56:00.000-07:00

Hey...its been five months since I posted to my blog....and to think that at one time I was posting almost every day...hoo boy!

This return to blogging, too, isnt my own idea... it got triggered off by a friend asking me the blog location. So the blog needs to look current atleast while she's reading it, right? :)

I've been writing some fun stuff in the meantime, some of it will make it to the blog. Two stories I wrote for Dinker's sci-fi mag Adbhut are on the net right now...see the Jan and May issues..they're related, by being set in the same universe. Both are experiments in different ways.

I'll try to capture newer experiences to the blog as and when I can separate them out into blog-size bits. Coming up soon, trip report of a vacation I took recently. That ought to take me a while ;)

2003-12-08T22:54:00.000-08:00

An excerpt from a mail I wrote.

But the past changes us. What the past did to us determins the decisions we will take, one way or the other. It puts signboards of upcoming goals and diversions on our otherwise eventless road of life. what happened yesterday helps us decide how we are doing today. Whether we agree or disagree with the decsions we made yesterday, we cannot be indifferent to them. When we think we're planning for the future, we're really reacting to the past. We like new friends if they look like old friends, we make new enemies if they behave like old enemies. My decisions in the past have put me where I am now, for better or for worse. There is no such thing as starting afresh - as long as you are in the new life you're imagining, it will extend from the old life you're living. And realizing this is not the same as learning to live with it.

2003-10-27T21:44:00.000-08:00

A belated (or is it far in advance?) happy Diwali to all! I had a good time with family during my four-day holiday - hope everyone else did, too. And now for something totally diferent:

Spiders remember childhood friends! Is one of the wierdest stories I've read in a long time. Not only for the fact which they've 'discovered, but for the tacit assumption they started with, that spiders and suchlike dont remember other creatures of their kind. I get the feeling that Indians don't have this assumption - or do they ? A lot of fairy stories imply that the little critters do remember, of course. I find myself unable to remember what I believed before reading this article... one more thing to think about.

2003-10-16T01:46:00.000-07:00

Rather disturbing piece of news :
Single screening theatres plan indefinite strike
The interesting part is that, Multiplexes are completely exempt from Entertainment tax - while normal theatres arent. That means the multiplexes, which charge about a hundred bucks a ticket, are pocketing ALL of it for themsleves...makes me feel bad about ever having gone to those places. Consdering that you dont get any special advantages at a multiplex (being able to pay 40 bucks for a burger during the interval is NOT an advantage)...Yeh koi tareeka hua! Me, I opt for the older theatres every time.

Which reminds me, I saw Samay a couple of days back (at a single-screen theatre). Very neatly done movie, even if the ending is copied from Seven. No useless songs (except for one 'item number', which can be forgiven, I guess), no Johnny Lever, and no romantic hero for the heroine. I noticed it was produced by iDream - These guys are definitely doing good work. All the movies they produce (like, 16th December, Jajantaram Mamataram, Mitr, the upcoming Rudraksh) are off the beaten track, generally low-budget, but technically well done.

2003-09-25T07:13:00.000-07:00

Watch this space :

Adbhut | Science Fiction and Fantasy | An Indian Experience

This is a magazine my friend Dinker is starting up. And if I know my friends right, this is going to be something worth looking at pretty soon.

2003-09-11T07:02:00.000-07:00

I just finished a really neat book : On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Already I find the run-on writing style has filtered into my own writing, particularly some letters I've written recently. I'll need to read something with clipped sentences (Len Deighton, maybe?) to get the writing back to normal :).
Also, a couple of days back, saw Mulholland Drive. One wierd movie, that one is. You need to either see it three or four times, or see summaries on the net(like I did) to make sense of the whole movie. Not to mention that I found the thing to be quite creepy. Of course, seeing it alone at 3 in the night may be part of the reason for that!

2003-09-05T01:45:00.000-07:00

Went home and looked up the remaining three books :) ( <-- Sheepish grin ).

18. All quiet on the western front - Erich Remarque
19. If you could see me now - Peter Straub
20. A kiss before dying - Ira Levin

Note the very high percentage of books either on the top 100 lists or written by authors on the list. Havent started on any of this lot yet. I'm currently finishing Wizard and Glass by Stephen King and On the Road by Jack Kerouac. On the Road is highly, highly recommended for its writing technique. Amazing book! Fully deserves to be so famous, unlike some of the real duds on that #$@ top 100 list.

Went out last evening with Samrat to see Bad Boys 2. It has been many years since I watched an action movie in the theatre (and I refuse to count Chura Liya Hai Tumne as action). Fun stunts, some very funny comedy sequences, and the added sparkle of having got the tickets free (prize from the Quiz we won). Added up to an enjoyable evening.

2003-09-04T05:05:00.000-07:00

After a long quiet spell, I've been on a crazy book-buying spree again. There's a great book exhibition at the Institute of Engineers, and the bargain books counter (20 bucks apiece!) has some really hard-to-find books. I've gotten addicted to finishing that Modern Library list of the top 100 books this century (BOTH the lists on that page), so I use it as a guideline when looking for books to buy.

I am now going to imitate George's (sometimes irritating) habit of gloating over my current haul:
1. The Moviegoer - Walker Percy
2. The Confessions of Nat Turner - William Styron
3. The Day of the Locust - Nathaniel West
4. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers
5. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert Heinlein
6. Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert Heinlein
7. We the Living - Ayn Rand
8. Journeys to the Twilight Zone - short stories ed. by Rod Serling's wife (whoever that was)
9. The Glass Key - Dashiell Hammett
10. The Belljar - Sylvia Plath
11. The Plague Dogs - Richard Adams
12. Our Town - Thornton Wilder
13. Sein Language - Jerry Seinfield
14. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - E. L. Konigsburg
15. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine D'Engle
16. Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut
17. Martin the Warrior - Brian Jacques
18.

OH - MY - GOD! I really cannot remember the remaining 3 books I bought just two days back! Either I'm buying too many books or my memory is fading. I am dumping this onto the blog and adding stuff as and when I remember it (or look it up).

2003-09-02T02:47:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I finally joined the 'Aashay Film Club', after having procrastinated over it for years. I dont think they have a proper website, so cant link to them. Basically they hold screenings of art/classic/experimental movies in all languages. Hunted around for the location of their 'office', finally found it, registered for a year, walked out really happy. Until yesterday morning, when it struck me that I was going to be going to these shows all alone. As far as I know, none of my friends are members of the club. So I need to either drag my old friends to come with me, or make new friends who are already there. :) Lessee how this goes.

2003-08-06T08:07:00.000-07:00

Finally, it's here, the next chapter of Pawar Guest House. The short story within was born while I was on a trip to Himachal Pradesh, and written when I was on a trip to Rajasthan, under less-than-ideal conditions. The word file where I'm writing the stories is now 110 kb.... some day it'll be a full book. :)

Chapter 6

It is now nearly a week since I read the diary, here at the Pawar Guest House. In the days that passed I struggled to come to terms with the diary’s contents, and even now, have not quite accepted the idea they lay out. Admittedly, this cannot be a new idea; browsing through any good public library will give me the technical word for it, will give me accounts of people faced with this problem, and how they dealt with it.

But… as the diary itself says, there’s no way my experience can be exactly the same as that of those other writers, or even of the person who wrote that diary. So that, even in this, my account of the conversations I had with the old lady, I cannot be sure that you are actually reading what I mean to write.

That evening after I returned, I had just the strength to copy down the contents of the diary, which she’d lent me. What we talked about after that, I felt, there was no point writing. Fortunately, the feeling has passed somewhat now, though it touches everything I say and write. Whatever twisted meaning it may convey to a reader, it should, hopefully, remind me of what actually happened afterwards.

- - -

I finished reading the diary, flipped through the remaining entries ( Bread – 8 Rs., Lunch – 20 Rs. … ) and closed the diary. My thoughts were in a jumble, somehow the diary had awakened the one demon I’d always fought against – the fear of not being understood – and proclaimed it victorious without a doubt.

She said,” You’ll probably not believe it, but I know what you’re feeling. You’ll get over it, in time. But this feeling, this idea is going to colour your thoughts and stories for a long, long time.”

I got up abruptly. “It’s…getting late. I need to get back.”

“Yes, of course you must. Come back only when you want to. I’d like to hear what you think about the diary, after you’ve had the time to mull it over.”

I walked back, through the deserted, sodium-vapour-lit streets, lost in my thoughts. She had been right. All the stories I’d remembered, all the tales I’d planned to tell, now seemed so useless against the one big cancer of an idea that kept pulling me in. I was alone, so alone forever, as alone as every other person I’d ever met. Just like every other person.

- - -

I don’t know why today, I’ve come back to the Guest House. Certainly, if she asks me, I have nothing to tell. Perhaps it is inertia, or perhaps some subconscious hope of finding some distraction from my thoughts.

Thankfully, she doesn’t seem to expect anything from me, either. As soon as I sit down, she says,” I’m pretty sure you don’t have anything to tell today. So for today, we’ll do what you originally wanted when you came here. I’ll tell the stories.

“Let me start with the reason why I came here. I’m not originally from here, I was born in Himachal Pradesh, among the hills…”

- - - - - -

It took a while before anyone recognized Anand. After all, he hadn’t been back to the village for nearly twenty years. He just stood there, where he’d gotten off the bus, as it rolled on, leaving a pall of dust and smoke. As the dust settled, Anand looked around him. Memories stirred in him as he recognized places, things, that hadn’t changed since he’d left this place.

He came out of his reverie with a jerk. Two old men in the dhaba opposite were looking at him curiously. The one with the red turban had a strange, doubtful look on his face. Anand picked up his traveling bag and walked across the road to the dhaba. He went up to the old men and said to the red-turbanned one,” Namaste, Ishwar Kaka. Remember me?”

Ishwar Kaka’s face cleared. He said,” Anand beta, it is you, then? I wasn’t… sure!” And a laugh broke free from him and he stood up clumsily to embrace the lost son of the village.

Anand asked him,” Is the old room by the temple still there? Is Ramdhari Kaka still the priest?” The old man looked at him, averted his face. “Why do you want to go there, beta? Come to my home, I’ve got a pucca home now. Why not stay with me?” But Anand was already shaking his head. “No, Kaka… next time, I’ll definitely stay with you. For tonight, let me go to the temple.”

“Then… you are only here for a day?”

“Yes, Kaka.”

“But… your land? I thought you’d come to sell off your land, or to till it?”

A faint smile crossed Anand’s face. “Some other time, Kaka. This time I’m just here to remember.” And he set off on the strange yet familiar path to the temple.

Ramdhari Kaka still was the priest, and he, of course, remembered Anand. The room was much smaller than he remembered it, and dustier. But it was empty, and Anand didn’t mind the dust. He bought a chatai from the Kirana shop and pread it out in its usual corner under the window. He rested there for a while, waiting for the evening.

Meanwhile the news of his arrival had spread like wildfire. Everyone, from Darbari Seth, the owner of the Chamunda lodge, to mad old Babu, cavorting in the freezing river water, knew Anand was back.

Evening is a very long period in the Himachal villages. The sun goes down below the mountains very early, but darkness arrives only when it is well and truly gone. People stop working in the tarraced fields, shops start closing, and only the groups of children scamper about on the streets. Their parents are too busy gossiping in the fading light at the village chaupal, or in the temple courtyard. Today, for some reason, the chaupal was deserted, and everyone seemed to converge on the temple courtyard for their gossip. People stole glances through the open door by the temple’s side, where they could just make out Anand’s feet in the gloom, and see him occasionally turn to his side.

He finally got up and came out of the room yawning. He didn’t seem surprised to see the people sitting in the courtyard, but walked over to the pot of water by the wall, drank from it, and sat down leaning against a pillar by the gate. The murmur of discussion rose up again, but hesitantly.

Finally, one old lady asked Anand,” How have you been, beta? We never heard from you after you left.”

“I’ve been alright, Kaki. I found some work in the city and studied through college. Now I have a job in the government.”

Anand felt like a liar, even though it was the truth he’d said. But how could he describe that he hadn’t been all right, that he’d starved so often to pay his fees, how he;d studied under street lamps, how he’d vended tea even after getting his degree, how he’d struggled to get his job. He could still taste the dust in his mouth from the day he’d left the village, in the early morning bus, hiding from everyone, hoping that the bus driver didn’t know who he was. He remembered living in fear, even in the city, fear that someone would recognize him, would take him back.

The old lady said,” I remember the time when you used to help out Vaidji in his work, you’d even made a kaadhaa for me once when I had a fever.”

Though controlling his voice took an effort, Anand spoke pleasantly enough.

“Yes, Kaki. I remember. Of course, Pitaji couldn’t teach me his craft for long. Darbari Seth took care of that.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Darbari Seth hadn’t come to the courtyard (perhaps he’d gone to the chaupal) but his wife was here. Almost everyone present knew Vaidji’s gambling habits, how he’d lost his house and land to Darbari Seth in a long night of drunk gambling. Anand, of course, remembered being woken from his sleep, early in the morning, by a goon, and being dragged out of the house by one arm. He remembered his mother weeping, assuring the goons that they would repay in full, if only they could stay here for a few more days…

Anand continued,” Of course, Ramdhari Kaka let us stay in this room for as long as we needed.”

The listeners shifted uneasily. Most of them could remember shutting out Vaidji ( who was, after all, a southerner, not a Himachali like themselves). Each had told himself that someone else would take these people in, ignoring the pleas audible from outside their doors, over the next few days after Vaidji had lost his home. They had snuggled inside, safe from the freezing cold of the winter.

“But beta, you were all quite comfortable here, and we… we would all have helped you if you’d had any problem.”

Anand’s voice remained calm as he said,” May I ask you a question, Kaki?”

Pausing a moment, he continued,” Does anyone remember the time at which Pitaji died?”

No one answered.

“Of course, no one remembers. No one even knows the time. It took me nearly half the day to get people to take him to the ghat. And no one wanted to do even that. Were you all so afraid of Pneumonia, that you were afraid of touching his body?”

Some of the villagers looked like they wished they handt come here. Morbid curiosity held the rest in a thrall. Even though Anand’s voice was calm, it was clear that he was accusing them, holding them all responsible.

One person stood up. Anand’s voice rang out after him, in the gloom.

“Thakur chacha, how come you’re in such a hurry? Arent you proud of the honour of being the first?”

“The first?” Thakur said roughly, drawn in, in spite of himself. “The first what?”

”The first to call me a ‘kalmunha’ to my face? The first to come with a crowd, to my mother and me, to demand the debts my father had left behind? The first person for whom I worked in the fields, trying to stay alive and repay my debts? You were an inspiration, Chacha, you were an inspiration to so many others who wanted their debts paid!”

Anand’s mind flashed back to his life as it had seemed to be to his ten-year-old mind then…an endless series of fields to be ploughed, grain to be threshed; as a labourer, bound to this village and its people forever… alone except for his mother, who was slowly but surely losing her mind…

She had still had phases of clear thought, and in one of these, late at night, she had woken him up frantically from a deep sleep. She’d stolen some money from a shop that day, and she told him about it as she thrust it into his pocket.

“Run, beta, run away. Don’t worry about me, I am going to die soon. Take the bus that goes to the city, early in the morning. Never come back, beta, never come back…”

He had started to protest, but she had pulled him up and stodd him straight by then. Even before he was fully awake, she was pushing him out of the door. Something struck her then, as she watched him framed against the night of stars, with the silent, sleeping village below it. She grabbed up a small pot of water and handed it to him. “Here, take this. Keep it with you in the bus. I don’t know where you will eat, beta, but atleast you will be free. Now go! Go!” And she had turned him around, towards the road, and slammed the door shut behind him.

He’d stood for a moment, listening to her weeping from behind the door. Then, as if still in a dream, he’d started walking.

Slowly at first, then almost running, he’d walked to the bus stop and hid behind a tree, clutching the unwieldy pot of water to him, jumping at every sound, suspecting every noise was a footfall, expecting a rough hand on his shoulder any minute…

Anand said, “ None of you know this, but the only thing I took from your village was a pot of water.” No one protested at his use of “your village”.

“And, of course, Thakur chacha had already discovered that I was a ‘kalmunha’. I’ve today to fulfil that prophecy, and to repay my debt.”

There was a stir at these words. No one, however, asked him to explain.

“All my life, I’ve been laughing at those stories about kind-hearted villagers helping strangers. All my life, I have had that pot of water, the only thing I got from here, on my mind. Perhaps that pot was what shaped my career.

“I’ve told you that I work for the government. Let me explain what work I do. I work for the Himachal Hydel Power Corporation, and I work for the Survey department. We look for suitable sites to set up Hydel projects – that means dams, Thakur chacha.

“I’m here to announce formally to the village that a big project is going to be set up in this valley.”

“But… that means…”

“Yes.” Anand said. Those close to him could have sworn he was smiling. This village is going to be submerged in a new lake of water in the valley. The government will of course give you suitable replacement homes and land… as it usually does. I’ll be in charge of that as well.”

- - - -

2003-07-28T07:08:00.000-07:00

So, people, finally, I'm back. Had to leave for a sudden visit to my in-laws place, about three weeks back. Boy, was it tiring!

But this long absence wasnt a total waste....I managed to get one more story in the Pawar Guest House series completed. This is probably the quickest of the lot, counting the time from inception to execution... one month! Will dump it here as soon as I get it typed.

Not much else to report... a huge number of things happened on this recently concluded trip...most of which are still too 'daanwadol' to tell now. The trip will be described on this blog in excruciating detail, someday.

Which reminds me of the promised account of my Himachal trip... Of yes, that one is over a dozen pages long and still only half done! Working on it, working on it...hang on :)